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"title": "Taiwanese Breakfast: One of the Bay Area’s Rarest, Most Coveted Meals",
"headTitle": "Taiwanese Breakfast: One of the Bay Area’s Rarest, Most Coveted Meals | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897870\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897870\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/TaiwanBreakfast_FinalInArticlePhoto.jpg\" alt=\"A bowl of savory soy milk and a sesame flatbread wrapped around a fried cruller, both against a blue background.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1277\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/TaiwanBreakfast_FinalInArticlePhoto.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/TaiwanBreakfast_FinalInArticlePhoto-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/TaiwanBreakfast_FinalInArticlePhoto-1020x678.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/TaiwanBreakfast_FinalInArticlePhoto-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/TaiwanBreakfast_FinalInArticlePhoto-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/TaiwanBreakfast_FinalInArticlePhoto-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u003cem>(Photos courtesy of Chef Wu; design by Rebecca Kao)\u003c/em>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">KQED’s \u003c/i>\u003c/em>Eating Taiwanese in the Bay\u003cem>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\"> is a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/eatingtaiwanese\">series of stories\u003c/a> exploring Taiwanese food culture in all of its glorious, delicious complexity.\u003c/i>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[dropcap]O[/dropcap]n a Sunday morning in late March, the line outside \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://www.taiwanbento.us/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taiwan Bento\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> snaked all the way around the corner on both sides of the downtown Oakland restaurant, down to Grand Avenue on one end and Webster Street on the other—an entire city block’s worth of customers, face masks on, small children and elderly in tow. They’d all made the pilgrimage to worship at the altar of this rarest and most coveted of Bay Area meals: Taiwanese breakfast.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was one of the larger crowds I’d been a part of since the start of the pandemic. People kept pulling up to ask what the deal was, then driving off just as confused: “Taiwanese breakfast? What’s that?” After waiting as long as four hours, customers were rewarded for their patience. Taiwan Bento’s takeout box included the sticky rice roll known as fan tuan, which came stuffed with pork floss, a fried cruller (a.k.a. you tiao), preserved vegetables and a tea egg split in half. It included a couple of steamed pork buns. And, maybe most exciting, there was what the restaurant called a “scallion egg pancake,” cut into bite-size pieces—Taiwan Bento’s take on the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://sf.eater.com/2021/2/19/22290174/taiwan-bento-dan-bing-scallion-egg-pancake-taiwanese-breakfast\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">savory rolled egg crepes known as dan bing\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897878\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1981px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897878\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/004_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021.jpg\" alt=\"A takeout box with sticky rice rolls, scallion egg pancake, and other Taiwanese breakfast items from Taiwan Bento.\" width=\"1981\" height=\"1321\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/004_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021.jpg 1981w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/004_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/004_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/004_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/004_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/004_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/004_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1981px) 100vw, 1981px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The takeout box for a subsequent Taiwan Bento breakfast pop-up, which also included a mochi muffin. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Owners Stacy Tang and Willy Wang say they were floored by the response, as the turnout “definitely surpassed our expectations,” Wang says. They point out that the event—the first of what they hope will be an ongoing breakfast pop-up series—was also a fundraiser to support the movement to Stop Asian Hate (and wound up \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/CM_qImUBSR8/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">raising $2,000 for the cause\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">), and so maybe that contributed to some of the buzz. Right now, Tang says, Taiwanese people living in America “want their comfort food, and they also want to support their community.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But the truth is, the turnout was always going to be huge: Of all the foods that Taiwanese Americans miss the most, Taiwanese breakfast is probably right at the top of the list—all the more so because it’s practically nonexistent in the Bay Area.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I can speak personally to that sense of desperate craving. Many, many times I’ve told friends that if I were ever to do something as foolhardy as try to open my own restaurant, it would be a Taiwanese breakfast shop—never mind that I’ve never even attempted to make dan bing at home. After all, if I miss Taiwanese breakfast so much that I’m willing, at the first whisper of savory soy milk, to drive an hour for these dishes, how many other homesick Taiwanese Americans must feel the same way?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897877\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1900px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897877\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/025_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021.jpg\" alt=\"A customer leans in to peeks inside Taiwan Bento as she waits her turn during the restaurant's Taiwanese breakfast pop-up. \" width=\"1900\" height=\"1267\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/025_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021.jpg 1900w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/025_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/025_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/025_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/025_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/025_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1900px) 100vw, 1900px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A customer patiently waits her turn. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What Is Taiwanese Breakfast, Exactly?\u003c/span>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The thing that many Taiwanese Americans miss the most is shaobing doujiang (燒餅豆漿), a meal genre centered on fresh soy milk, either sweet or savory, and the flaky sesame flatbreads known as shaobing, which are typically stuffed with fried crullers or scallion-laced eggs. Dan bing and fan tuan are also staples on this type of menu—mostly adaptations of dishes \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.myrecipes.com/extracrispy/taiwan-breakfast-baseball\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">brought over to Taiwan by transplants from northern China\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. (My standard order always included a dan bing stuffed \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">inside \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">of a shaobing.) \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When people wax nostalgic about “Taiwanese breakfast,” this is the style of meal they’re usually talking about. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In Taipei, the best known and most ubiquitous doujiang dian, or “soy milk shop,” is Yonghe Doujiang, many of whose locations aren’t much more elaborate than a street stall. There were at least three outposts of the chain within a 10-minute walk of my grandma’s apartment in Taipei; one of them was open 24 hours, which meant it was often my first stop after I got off a late-night flight. The first bite into the shaobing’s crackly, sesame seed–coated exterior was the surest sign that I was really and truly home. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[aside tag='eating-taiwanese' label='Eating Taiwanese']After years of fruitless searching, I concluded that there isn’t really anything close to a Yonghe Doujiang equivalent in the Bay Area. You can find versions of shaobing, for instance, on the wheat-based menus of northern Chinese restaurants, but they’re rarely offered as a breakfast item—and even more rarely served with all of the other items you’d find at any basic street stall in Taipei. In most parts of the Bay, dan bing, fan tuan and savory soy milk—served hot in a bowl, lightly curdled with vinegar and streaked with chili oil—are even harder to come by.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> why the line at Taiwan Bento’s pop-up was four hours long—why there was so much palpable excitement for a three-item takeout box. (It didn’t hurt either that the fan tuan and dan bing were both truly excellent.)\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“People haven’t seen fan tuan for ages, and they’re also not able to travel back to Taiwan right now,” Tang says. “They’re so happy that they’re able to get the thing.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A Uniquely Taiwanese Taste\u003c/span>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It makes sense, however, that if you broaden the definition of Taiwanese breakfast, you might have better luck finding it. After all, in Taiwan, as in the U.S., people eat all kinds of different things for breakfast. For instance, in a few weeks, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/cafemeiusa/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cafe Mei\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a new restaurant in Fremont, will introduce Bay Area diners to another morning favorite: the Taiwanese breakfast burger. Sold at little short-order, Western-style breakfast stalls throughout Taiwan, these burgers feature a heavily marinated pork patty and a fried egg, and are garnished with slices of raw cucumber (instead of, say, lettuce) and a swipe of special mayonnaise. Up until now, I’d never seen them in the Bay.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897879\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897879\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/CafeMei_burger-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A Taiwanese breakfast burger, with fried egg, tomato, and cucumber garnish visible, on top of a checker-patterned sheet of wax paper. \" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/CafeMei_burger-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/CafeMei_burger-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/CafeMei_burger-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/CafeMei_burger-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/CafeMei_burger-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/CafeMei_burger-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/CafeMei_burger-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/CafeMei_burger-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Toppings for the Cafe Mei breakfast burger include tomato, fried egg, and thinly sliced cucumber. \u003ccite>(Luke Tsai)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Owner Kandy Wang says her first job as an 18-year-old kid in Taipei was at \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://www.mam.com.tw/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mei Er Mei\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, the most famous of Taiwan’s Western-style breakfast chains, known for its tidy ham-and-egg sandwiches as well as those breakfast burgers. Her family immigrated to the U.S. shortly after that, and in the decades since, Wang says, she kept trying to fill the Mei Er Mei void in her life to no avail. “You can only duplicate so much,” she says. “You just miss the taste of home.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, this past summer, Wang finally opened \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/cafemeiusa/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">her own spinoff of the chain\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">—the first she’s aware of in the United States—initially just on a limited weekly pre-order basis, with the pandemic still raging. Located in a Fremont strip mall, the cafe isn’t officially connected to the Mei Er Mei in Taiwan, but Wang says she secured the official recipes for the chain’s burger patties and mayonnaise from one of its suppliers. (She’s also trademarked the name Mei Er Mei for use in the U.S.)\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897881\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897881\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/cafe-mei_to-go-11-original-pancake-with-egg-9-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Dan bing cut into bite-size pieces with a small container of soy sauce-based dipping sauce.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/cafe-mei_to-go-11-original-pancake-with-egg-9-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/cafe-mei_to-go-11-original-pancake-with-egg-9-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/cafe-mei_to-go-11-original-pancake-with-egg-9-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/cafe-mei_to-go-11-original-pancake-with-egg-9-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/cafe-mei_to-go-11-original-pancake-with-egg-9-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/cafe-mei_to-go-11-original-pancake-with-egg-9-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/cafe-mei_to-go-11-original-pancake-with-egg-9-2048x1152.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/cafe-mei_to-go-11-original-pancake-with-egg-9-1920x1080.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cafe Mei’s dan bing is also expected to be a top seller. \u003ccite>(Cafe Mei)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When Cafe Mei officially opens to the public, probably in mid-June, it’ll also serve dan bing—a thinner, more crepe-like version than Taiwan Bento’s—and assorted grab-and-go breakfast sandwiches. For many customers, however, those breakfast burgers will be the blast of nostalgia they won’t be able to resist. True to my memory of them from so many bleary-eyed mornings in Taipei, the patties are uncommonly juicy and flavorful, and the cool, crunchy cucumber slices make for a refreshing addition. They’re part of what makes the burgers taste so uniquely Taiwanese.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A Bona Fide Doujiang Dian\u003c/span>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s also not quite accurate to say that the much pined after doujiang dian format is entirely\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">non-existent in the Bay Area. A handful of restaurants in the South Bay and on the Peninsula, like Joy Restaurant in Foster City and China Bee in San Mateo, have long sold fresh soy milk and a handful of other breakfast specials on the weekend. The owners of \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/yilanfoods/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yilan Foods\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, probably the most widely acclaimed of the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13897272/bay-area-taiwanese-food-scene-nostalgia\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">new Taiwanese pop-ups\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, say they’re determined to eventually offer fan tuan, fried crullers and perhaps fresh, house-made soy milk when they open as a standalone restaurant, probably in San Francisco. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And Tang of Taiwan Bento plans to continue her restaurant’s occasional Taiwanese breakfast pop-ups, with the hope of eventually making the breakfast items a permanent addition to the menu. Already, the scallion egg pancakes are available all week long.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897880\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1981px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897880\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/015_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021.jpg\" alt=\"Stacy Tang (right), wearing a face mask, prepares scallion egg pancakes, or dan bing, during one of her restaurant's breakfast pop-ups.\" width=\"1981\" height=\"1321\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/015_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021.jpg 1981w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/015_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/015_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/015_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/015_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/015_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/015_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1981px) 100vw, 1981px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Stacy Tang prepares scallion egg pancake, or dan bing, during a recent breakfast pop-up. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even now, Tang says, it isn’t strictly accurate to say that there isn’t \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">anyone \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">selling shaobing and doujiang in the Bay Area; it’s just that all of that is happening in the more informal economy within the Taiwanese immigrant community—again, mostly in the South Bay and on the Peninsula. If you know where to look, you can find folks selling all of those dishes from their homes via WeChat and private, Chinese-language-only Facebook groups. “It’s not that accessible,” Tang says.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s also one bona fide doujiang dian that’s largely eluded the attention of the shaobing- and fan tuan–loving masses, though it’s well known within the South Bay’s Taiwanese immigrant community. (I’d somehow never come across it in all my years of searching.) Open in Newark since 1996, with a decade-plus stint in Cupertino in between, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/chefwuchineserestaurant/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Chef Wu\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> specializes in all of the Taiwanese breakfast dishes I’ve been craving: The restaurant makes its own shaobing, you tiao and doujiang in-house, and it’s done so for \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">years\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, though it has stayed closed during the pandemic.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897884\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897884\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/ChefWu_youtiao-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A woman preps the you tiao, or fried crullers, in the kitchen at Chef Wu \" width=\"2560\" height=\"1706\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/ChefWu_youtiao-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/ChefWu_youtiao-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/ChefWu_youtiao-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/ChefWu_youtiao-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/ChefWu_youtiao-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/ChefWu_youtiao-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/ChefWu_youtiao-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/ChefWu_youtiao-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kuo’s mother preps the you tiao in the kitchen at Chef Wu. \u003ccite>(Peter Wu)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lih Chuen Kuo, who owns the restaurant along with husband Kun Dou Wu, comes from a doujiang dian family; her mother’s family ran a popular shop in Taipei’s Shilin district. When Chef Wu was located in Cupertino, from 1997 to 2010, the restaurant started serving breakfast on the weekends, and Kuo says it was very busy, with long lines, from the get-go. In fact, there used to be a running joke in the community: “If you live in Cupertino and never went to Huan Xi Lou (the restaurant’s Chinese name), can you really say that you live in the South Bay?” Kuo says in Mandarin.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ever since the restaurant moved back to the East Bay in 2012, Chef Wu has served its full lineup of Taiwanese breakfast dishes all day long every day that it was open, Wednesday through Sunday—so, customers can score beef shaobing sandwiches, savory soy milk and even rarer offerings like sweet rice milk (mi jiang) five days a week. To Kuo’s knowledge, it’s the only local Taiwanese restaurant serving breakfast that often. And it’s almost certainly the only Bay Area restaurant that’s known \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">primarily\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> for Taiwanese breakfast. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As such, Kuo says, she was used to having customers travel long distances to get their fix, driving down from Livermore or Sacramento. One customer would fly in from Texas every summer, buy 100 shaobing and freeze them to bring home. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897886\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897886\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/IMG_1413-1.jpg\" alt=\"Shaobing you tiao (fried cruller wrapped in sesame flat bread) on a white ceramic plate against a white background. \" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/IMG_1413-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/IMG_1413-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/IMG_1413-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/IMG_1413-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/IMG_1413-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/IMG_1413-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/IMG_1413-1-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chef Wu’s shaobing youtiao. \u003ccite>(Chef Wu)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kuo and her husband closed the restaurant down last March at the start of the pandemic, and ever since then, Kuo has been peppered with questions from long-time customers asking when they’ll reopen. That’s no surprise, Kuo says, given that she went through the same thing during the two-year hiatus after she closed Chef Wu’s Cupertino location. Everywhere she went, it seemed—when visiting Reno, or at the airport in Taiwan—she would run into old customers. “Why don’t you hurry up and open?” they’d say. “We’ve missed it so much!”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For the many Taiwanese Americans who’ve been waiting for years for a reliable Taiwanese breakfast spot, as well as for those outside of the community who haven’t yet had the pleasure, there’s good news: According to Kuo, the restaurant will likely reopen in mid-June. You’ll find me there, at the front of the line, saying a little prayer of thanks that I don’t need to open my own restaurant just to eat the breakfast I’ve been craving for the past 30 years.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897264\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"127\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish-160x25.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish-768x122.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Of all the meals that Taiwanese Americans miss most, a shaobing doujiang breakfast might top the list.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897870\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897870\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/TaiwanBreakfast_FinalInArticlePhoto.jpg\" alt=\"A bowl of savory soy milk and a sesame flatbread wrapped around a fried cruller, both against a blue background.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1277\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/TaiwanBreakfast_FinalInArticlePhoto.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/TaiwanBreakfast_FinalInArticlePhoto-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/TaiwanBreakfast_FinalInArticlePhoto-1020x678.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/TaiwanBreakfast_FinalInArticlePhoto-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/TaiwanBreakfast_FinalInArticlePhoto-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/TaiwanBreakfast_FinalInArticlePhoto-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u003cem>(Photos courtesy of Chef Wu; design by Rebecca Kao)\u003c/em>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">KQED’s \u003c/i>\u003c/em>Eating Taiwanese in the Bay\u003cem>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\"> is a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/eatingtaiwanese\">series of stories\u003c/a> exploring Taiwanese food culture in all of its glorious, delicious complexity.\u003c/i>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__dropcapShortcode__dropcap\">O\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>n a Sunday morning in late March, the line outside \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://www.taiwanbento.us/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taiwan Bento\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> snaked all the way around the corner on both sides of the downtown Oakland restaurant, down to Grand Avenue on one end and Webster Street on the other—an entire city block’s worth of customers, face masks on, small children and elderly in tow. They’d all made the pilgrimage to worship at the altar of this rarest and most coveted of Bay Area meals: Taiwanese breakfast.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was one of the larger crowds I’d been a part of since the start of the pandemic. People kept pulling up to ask what the deal was, then driving off just as confused: “Taiwanese breakfast? What’s that?” After waiting as long as four hours, customers were rewarded for their patience. Taiwan Bento’s takeout box included the sticky rice roll known as fan tuan, which came stuffed with pork floss, a fried cruller (a.k.a. you tiao), preserved vegetables and a tea egg split in half. It included a couple of steamed pork buns. And, maybe most exciting, there was what the restaurant called a “scallion egg pancake,” cut into bite-size pieces—Taiwan Bento’s take on the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://sf.eater.com/2021/2/19/22290174/taiwan-bento-dan-bing-scallion-egg-pancake-taiwanese-breakfast\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">savory rolled egg crepes known as dan bing\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897878\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1981px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897878\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/004_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021.jpg\" alt=\"A takeout box with sticky rice rolls, scallion egg pancake, and other Taiwanese breakfast items from Taiwan Bento.\" width=\"1981\" height=\"1321\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/004_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021.jpg 1981w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/004_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/004_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/004_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/004_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/004_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/004_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1981px) 100vw, 1981px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The takeout box for a subsequent Taiwan Bento breakfast pop-up, which also included a mochi muffin. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Owners Stacy Tang and Willy Wang say they were floored by the response, as the turnout “definitely surpassed our expectations,” Wang says. They point out that the event—the first of what they hope will be an ongoing breakfast pop-up series—was also a fundraiser to support the movement to Stop Asian Hate (and wound up \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/CM_qImUBSR8/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">raising $2,000 for the cause\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">), and so maybe that contributed to some of the buzz. Right now, Tang says, Taiwanese people living in America “want their comfort food, and they also want to support their community.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But the truth is, the turnout was always going to be huge: Of all the foods that Taiwanese Americans miss the most, Taiwanese breakfast is probably right at the top of the list—all the more so because it’s practically nonexistent in the Bay Area.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I can speak personally to that sense of desperate craving. Many, many times I’ve told friends that if I were ever to do something as foolhardy as try to open my own restaurant, it would be a Taiwanese breakfast shop—never mind that I’ve never even attempted to make dan bing at home. After all, if I miss Taiwanese breakfast so much that I’m willing, at the first whisper of savory soy milk, to drive an hour for these dishes, how many other homesick Taiwanese Americans must feel the same way?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897877\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1900px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897877\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/025_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021.jpg\" alt=\"A customer leans in to peeks inside Taiwan Bento as she waits her turn during the restaurant's Taiwanese breakfast pop-up. \" width=\"1900\" height=\"1267\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/025_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021.jpg 1900w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/025_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/025_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/025_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/025_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/025_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1900px) 100vw, 1900px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A customer patiently waits her turn. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What Is Taiwanese Breakfast, Exactly?\u003c/span>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The thing that many Taiwanese Americans miss the most is shaobing doujiang (燒餅豆漿), a meal genre centered on fresh soy milk, either sweet or savory, and the flaky sesame flatbreads known as shaobing, which are typically stuffed with fried crullers or scallion-laced eggs. Dan bing and fan tuan are also staples on this type of menu—mostly adaptations of dishes \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.myrecipes.com/extracrispy/taiwan-breakfast-baseball\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">brought over to Taiwan by transplants from northern China\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. (My standard order always included a dan bing stuffed \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">inside \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">of a shaobing.) \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When people wax nostalgic about “Taiwanese breakfast,” this is the style of meal they’re usually talking about. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In Taipei, the best known and most ubiquitous doujiang dian, or “soy milk shop,” is Yonghe Doujiang, many of whose locations aren’t much more elaborate than a street stall. There were at least three outposts of the chain within a 10-minute walk of my grandma’s apartment in Taipei; one of them was open 24 hours, which meant it was often my first stop after I got off a late-night flight. The first bite into the shaobing’s crackly, sesame seed–coated exterior was the surest sign that I was really and truly home. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>After years of fruitless searching, I concluded that there isn’t really anything close to a Yonghe Doujiang equivalent in the Bay Area. You can find versions of shaobing, for instance, on the wheat-based menus of northern Chinese restaurants, but they’re rarely offered as a breakfast item—and even more rarely served with all of the other items you’d find at any basic street stall in Taipei. In most parts of the Bay, dan bing, fan tuan and savory soy milk—served hot in a bowl, lightly curdled with vinegar and streaked with chili oil—are even harder to come by.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> why the line at Taiwan Bento’s pop-up was four hours long—why there was so much palpable excitement for a three-item takeout box. (It didn’t hurt either that the fan tuan and dan bing were both truly excellent.)\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“People haven’t seen fan tuan for ages, and they’re also not able to travel back to Taiwan right now,” Tang says. “They’re so happy that they’re able to get the thing.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A Uniquely Taiwanese Taste\u003c/span>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It makes sense, however, that if you broaden the definition of Taiwanese breakfast, you might have better luck finding it. After all, in Taiwan, as in the U.S., people eat all kinds of different things for breakfast. For instance, in a few weeks, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/cafemeiusa/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cafe Mei\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a new restaurant in Fremont, will introduce Bay Area diners to another morning favorite: the Taiwanese breakfast burger. Sold at little short-order, Western-style breakfast stalls throughout Taiwan, these burgers feature a heavily marinated pork patty and a fried egg, and are garnished with slices of raw cucumber (instead of, say, lettuce) and a swipe of special mayonnaise. Up until now, I’d never seen them in the Bay.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897879\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897879\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/CafeMei_burger-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A Taiwanese breakfast burger, with fried egg, tomato, and cucumber garnish visible, on top of a checker-patterned sheet of wax paper. \" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/CafeMei_burger-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/CafeMei_burger-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/CafeMei_burger-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/CafeMei_burger-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/CafeMei_burger-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/CafeMei_burger-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/CafeMei_burger-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/CafeMei_burger-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Toppings for the Cafe Mei breakfast burger include tomato, fried egg, and thinly sliced cucumber. \u003ccite>(Luke Tsai)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Owner Kandy Wang says her first job as an 18-year-old kid in Taipei was at \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://www.mam.com.tw/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mei Er Mei\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, the most famous of Taiwan’s Western-style breakfast chains, known for its tidy ham-and-egg sandwiches as well as those breakfast burgers. Her family immigrated to the U.S. shortly after that, and in the decades since, Wang says, she kept trying to fill the Mei Er Mei void in her life to no avail. “You can only duplicate so much,” she says. “You just miss the taste of home.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, this past summer, Wang finally opened \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/cafemeiusa/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">her own spinoff of the chain\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">—the first she’s aware of in the United States—initially just on a limited weekly pre-order basis, with the pandemic still raging. Located in a Fremont strip mall, the cafe isn’t officially connected to the Mei Er Mei in Taiwan, but Wang says she secured the official recipes for the chain’s burger patties and mayonnaise from one of its suppliers. (She’s also trademarked the name Mei Er Mei for use in the U.S.)\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897881\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897881\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/cafe-mei_to-go-11-original-pancake-with-egg-9-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Dan bing cut into bite-size pieces with a small container of soy sauce-based dipping sauce.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/cafe-mei_to-go-11-original-pancake-with-egg-9-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/cafe-mei_to-go-11-original-pancake-with-egg-9-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/cafe-mei_to-go-11-original-pancake-with-egg-9-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/cafe-mei_to-go-11-original-pancake-with-egg-9-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/cafe-mei_to-go-11-original-pancake-with-egg-9-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/cafe-mei_to-go-11-original-pancake-with-egg-9-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/cafe-mei_to-go-11-original-pancake-with-egg-9-2048x1152.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/cafe-mei_to-go-11-original-pancake-with-egg-9-1920x1080.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cafe Mei’s dan bing is also expected to be a top seller. \u003ccite>(Cafe Mei)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When Cafe Mei officially opens to the public, probably in mid-June, it’ll also serve dan bing—a thinner, more crepe-like version than Taiwan Bento’s—and assorted grab-and-go breakfast sandwiches. For many customers, however, those breakfast burgers will be the blast of nostalgia they won’t be able to resist. True to my memory of them from so many bleary-eyed mornings in Taipei, the patties are uncommonly juicy and flavorful, and the cool, crunchy cucumber slices make for a refreshing addition. They’re part of what makes the burgers taste so uniquely Taiwanese.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A Bona Fide Doujiang Dian\u003c/span>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s also not quite accurate to say that the much pined after doujiang dian format is entirely\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">non-existent in the Bay Area. A handful of restaurants in the South Bay and on the Peninsula, like Joy Restaurant in Foster City and China Bee in San Mateo, have long sold fresh soy milk and a handful of other breakfast specials on the weekend. The owners of \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/yilanfoods/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yilan Foods\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, probably the most widely acclaimed of the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13897272/bay-area-taiwanese-food-scene-nostalgia\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">new Taiwanese pop-ups\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, say they’re determined to eventually offer fan tuan, fried crullers and perhaps fresh, house-made soy milk when they open as a standalone restaurant, probably in San Francisco. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And Tang of Taiwan Bento plans to continue her restaurant’s occasional Taiwanese breakfast pop-ups, with the hope of eventually making the breakfast items a permanent addition to the menu. Already, the scallion egg pancakes are available all week long.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897880\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1981px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897880\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/015_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021.jpg\" alt=\"Stacy Tang (right), wearing a face mask, prepares scallion egg pancakes, or dan bing, during one of her restaurant's breakfast pop-ups.\" width=\"1981\" height=\"1321\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/015_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021.jpg 1981w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/015_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/015_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/015_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/015_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/015_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/015_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1981px) 100vw, 1981px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Stacy Tang prepares scallion egg pancake, or dan bing, during a recent breakfast pop-up. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even now, Tang says, it isn’t strictly accurate to say that there isn’t \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">anyone \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">selling shaobing and doujiang in the Bay Area; it’s just that all of that is happening in the more informal economy within the Taiwanese immigrant community—again, mostly in the South Bay and on the Peninsula. If you know where to look, you can find folks selling all of those dishes from their homes via WeChat and private, Chinese-language-only Facebook groups. “It’s not that accessible,” Tang says.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s also one bona fide doujiang dian that’s largely eluded the attention of the shaobing- and fan tuan–loving masses, though it’s well known within the South Bay’s Taiwanese immigrant community. (I’d somehow never come across it in all my years of searching.) Open in Newark since 1996, with a decade-plus stint in Cupertino in between, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/chefwuchineserestaurant/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Chef Wu\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> specializes in all of the Taiwanese breakfast dishes I’ve been craving: The restaurant makes its own shaobing, you tiao and doujiang in-house, and it’s done so for \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">years\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, though it has stayed closed during the pandemic.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897884\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897884\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/ChefWu_youtiao-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A woman preps the you tiao, or fried crullers, in the kitchen at Chef Wu \" width=\"2560\" height=\"1706\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/ChefWu_youtiao-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/ChefWu_youtiao-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/ChefWu_youtiao-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/ChefWu_youtiao-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/ChefWu_youtiao-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/ChefWu_youtiao-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/ChefWu_youtiao-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/ChefWu_youtiao-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kuo’s mother preps the you tiao in the kitchen at Chef Wu. \u003ccite>(Peter Wu)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lih Chuen Kuo, who owns the restaurant along with husband Kun Dou Wu, comes from a doujiang dian family; her mother’s family ran a popular shop in Taipei’s Shilin district. When Chef Wu was located in Cupertino, from 1997 to 2010, the restaurant started serving breakfast on the weekends, and Kuo says it was very busy, with long lines, from the get-go. In fact, there used to be a running joke in the community: “If you live in Cupertino and never went to Huan Xi Lou (the restaurant’s Chinese name), can you really say that you live in the South Bay?” Kuo says in Mandarin.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ever since the restaurant moved back to the East Bay in 2012, Chef Wu has served its full lineup of Taiwanese breakfast dishes all day long every day that it was open, Wednesday through Sunday—so, customers can score beef shaobing sandwiches, savory soy milk and even rarer offerings like sweet rice milk (mi jiang) five days a week. To Kuo’s knowledge, it’s the only local Taiwanese restaurant serving breakfast that often. And it’s almost certainly the only Bay Area restaurant that’s known \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">primarily\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> for Taiwanese breakfast. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As such, Kuo says, she was used to having customers travel long distances to get their fix, driving down from Livermore or Sacramento. One customer would fly in from Texas every summer, buy 100 shaobing and freeze them to bring home. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897886\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897886\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/IMG_1413-1.jpg\" alt=\"Shaobing you tiao (fried cruller wrapped in sesame flat bread) on a white ceramic plate against a white background. \" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/IMG_1413-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/IMG_1413-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/IMG_1413-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/IMG_1413-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/IMG_1413-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/IMG_1413-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/IMG_1413-1-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chef Wu’s shaobing youtiao. \u003ccite>(Chef Wu)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kuo and her husband closed the restaurant down last March at the start of the pandemic, and ever since then, Kuo has been peppered with questions from long-time customers asking when they’ll reopen. That’s no surprise, Kuo says, given that she went through the same thing during the two-year hiatus after she closed Chef Wu’s Cupertino location. Everywhere she went, it seemed—when visiting Reno, or at the airport in Taiwan—she would run into old customers. “Why don’t you hurry up and open?” they’d say. “We’ve missed it so much!”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For the many Taiwanese Americans who’ve been waiting for years for a reliable Taiwanese breakfast spot, as well as for those outside of the community who haven’t yet had the pleasure, there’s good news: According to Kuo, the restaurant will likely reopen in mid-June. You’ll find me there, at the front of the line, saying a little prayer of thanks that I don’t need to open my own restaurant just to eat the breakfast I’ve been craving for the past 30 years.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897264\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"127\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish-160x25.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish-768x122.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Why Silicon Valley is Still the Heart of the Bay Area’s Taiwanese Restaurant Scene",
"headTitle": "Why Silicon Valley is Still the Heart of the Bay Area’s Taiwanese Restaurant Scene | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897834\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897834\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/SVTaiwanese_FinalInArticlePhoto.jpg\" alt=\"A pair of gua bao, or Taiwanese pork belly buns, on a white plate, against a stylized blue backdrop.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1277\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/SVTaiwanese_FinalInArticlePhoto.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/SVTaiwanese_FinalInArticlePhoto-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/SVTaiwanese_FinalInArticlePhoto-1020x678.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/SVTaiwanese_FinalInArticlePhoto-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/SVTaiwanese_FinalInArticlePhoto-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/SVTaiwanese_FinalInArticlePhoto-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u003cem>(Photo by Beth LaBerge; design by Rebecca Kao)\u003c/em>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">KQED’s \u003c/i>\u003c/em>Eating Taiwanese in the Bay\u003cem>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\"> is a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/eatingtaiwanese\">series of stories\u003c/a> exploring Taiwanese food culture in all of its glorious, delicious complexity.\u003c/i>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[dropcap]D[/dropcap]riving down Stevens Creek Boulevard in Cupertino, it’s easier to find a boba drink than a Frappuccino. Hungry teenagers roam shopping centers looking for hot dogs wrapped in milk bread. And “bento,” more often than not, means a multi-compartmented Taiwanese feast of pork chop, rice, vegetables and braised egg. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s not by chance that Silicon Valley became ground zero for the Bay Area’s Taiwanese food scene. Santa Clara County’s Taiwanese population is second in the U.S. only to Los Angeles County. Mom-and-pop Taiwanese eateries proliferated along with the rise of personal computers and the internet. Before long, Taiwanese Americans throughout Northern California knew that if they wanted a decent oyster omelet or beef noodle soup, chances were they’d have to trek out to a strip mall in Milpitas or Cupertino.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But just as new start-ups have forced the legacy tech companies to evolve, many of Silicon Valley’s most beloved Taiwanese restaurants now face a turning point as their founders age and the pandemic continues to hamstring their business. \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/Mama-Chens-Kitchen-292054490826/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mama Chen’s Kitchen\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is a sunny Cupertino restaurant known for its Taiwanese small bites, including gua bao and stinky tofu—foods best enjoyed fresh out of the steamer or wok and shared with friends. Like Apple’s new offices across the street, however, the dining room’s glossy tables mostly sat empty during a recent lunch hour. “You can imagine how many people work there, I think more than 20,000 people,” owner Bobby Chan says of his depleted customer base. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897843\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1805px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897843\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/025_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021.jpg\" alt=\"A plate of fried stinky tofu with a side of pickled cabbage on a white countertop.\" width=\"1805\" height=\"1203\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/025_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021.jpg 1805w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/025_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/025_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/025_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/025_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/025_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1805px) 100vw, 1805px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fried stinky tofu: a classic Taiwanese street food dish. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Chan started the restaurant in 2012 with his mother-in-law, affectionately known in the Taiwanese American community as “Mama Chen.” These days, it’s one of the many Taiwanese spots across the Valley that are struggling to reinvent themselves during the pandemic. But there’s good news too. A second generation of Taiwanese American restaurant owners have taken the reins from their parents, using social media to sell traditional foods in ways no one could have imagined when they first opened their doors. Their restaurants’ continued success speaks to an underlying truth that hasn’t changed in 20 or 30 years: If you want to understand the Bay Area’s Taiwanese food community, you have to spend time in Silicon Valley.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Taiwan’s Brain Drain and the Rise of High Tech\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I first moved to San Jose as a kid in the early 1980s. My family was part of a wave of Taiwanese Americans lured by growing companies such as IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Apple. Like many immigrants from Taiwan in the 1960s and ’70s, my parents came to the United States to pursue advanced degrees in science and engineering, part of the “brain drain” of the island’s most highly educated citizens who were newly eligible to go to America under the Immigration Act of 1965. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“You had a larger number of immigrants that could come from China, from Taiwan,” explains Franklin Ng, professor of anthropology at Fresno State and author of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Taiwanese Americans\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. “A very, very fortuitously historic fact was that the United States was beginning to move into what you might call the computer age. And micro-conductors were very important at this time. And it just happened that UC Berkeley, Stanford, Stanford Industrial Park, Santa Clara, this area was important as a sort of petri dish for innovation.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But engineers weren’t necessarily good cooks. While there were restaurants serving American Chinese and Cantonese food, there weren’t many that could dish up the sweet and savory flavors, the oysters and squid, or the chewy rice and tapioca confections typical of my family’s Fujianese (or Hoklo) ancestors, who settled in Taiwan beginning in the 1600s. Nor was it easy to find the wheat-based noodles and pancakes popularized by the post-1949 transplants who arrived from China after the Chinese Civil War—the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://ketagalanmedia.com/2018/12/08/history-taiwanese-identity/?fbclid=IwAR0DS4diOwKtO0AC855hk5V0x4BwonqRnmrdNIUAH5e58QfAnWd1PLo92yw\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">self-described waishengren\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> (literally, “people born outside the province” or “foreign-born people” in Mandarin).\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My parents drove us all over the Valley searching for the madeleines of their youth: stretchy oyster omelets drizzled with sweet red chili-miso sauce, squid soup zingy with black vinegar or the warm goodness of fresh-pressed soy milk. Eventually, we found these foods and more, ordering xiaolongbao off the menu at a lunch-special joint and slurping pork chop noodles in the back of an ice cream parlor.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897840\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1702px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897840\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/001_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021.jpg\" alt=\"A Taiwanese oyster omelette on a square plate, on a white countertop.\" width=\"1702\" height=\"1135\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/001_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021.jpg 1702w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/001_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/001_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/001_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/001_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/001_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1702px) 100vw, 1702px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mama Chen’s elegant version of an oyster omelet, a popular Taiwanese street food. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Luckily, changes in U.S. immigration policies also allowed for family reunification, which proved to be a further boon for the burgeoning Taiwanese restaurant scene. Chin-Shin Yang, known by her married last name “Mama Chen,” was one of the many Taiwanese immigrants who arrived in the United States in the 1980s. At first, she started selling \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-06-09/savory-treat-dragon-boat-festival-and-aunties-who-make-them\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">bah tsàng\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, homemade leaf-wrapped rice dumplings stuffed with pork and other goodies, directly to the Taiwanese American community. By 1997 she developed enough of a following that she and her son-in-law opened their first restaurant in Milpitas, named Southland (“Tainan” in Chinese) after her hometown in Southern Taiwan. A year later, they opened another outpost in the Cupertino Village shopping center, anchored by a Ranch 99 supermarket. Those restaurants have since closed or been sold, but Mama Chen became well known in the community, often donating meals for church events or the annual Taiwanese American Cultural Festival. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897839\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1762px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897839\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/006_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021.jpg\" alt=\"Taiwanese bah tsang (or leaf-wrapped rice dumpling) in a white bowl on a white countertop.\" width=\"1762\" height=\"1175\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/006_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021.jpg 1762w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/006_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/006_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/006_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/006_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/006_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1762px) 100vw, 1762px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mama Chen started off just selling bah tsang within the local Taiwanese community. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2012, Chen and her son-in-law opened Mama Chen’s Kitchen at its current location on Stevens Creek Boulevard. Sitting down to a meal there reminds me of the area’s earliest Taiwanese restaurants—tidy family businesses that served small plates to be shared. After Chen herself passed away several years ago, Chan, her son-in-law, has continued to run the restaurant. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Many of Silicon Valley’s oldest Taiwanese restaurants opened in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In addition to \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.southlandcafe.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Southland Cafe\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in Cupertino, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://www.queenhouserestaurant.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Queen House\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> opened on Castro Street in Mountain View and \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://www.taiwancafe.me/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taiwan Cafe\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> set up shop in Milpitas. In 2000, I came back to my hometown after being away for most of the 1990s for college and work, and the changes were unmistakable. Computer chip manufacturers were moving overseas, and internet start-ups employed a steady stream of new immigrants from places like Taiwan. Boba shops had sprung up, selling deep-fried fish balls and five spice–scented popcorn chicken to go along with sweet milk teas, all to a Mandopop soundtrack.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the Valley today, you can eat Taiwanese food from dawn until dusk, beginning with a bowl of sweet potato congee at Taiwan Porridge Kingdom and moving on to Southland’s savory rice pudding steamed in a bowl. You can snack on pillowy baked buns stuffed with taro or pork floss at one of the local bakeries and then finish the day with an icy lager and three-cup squid at a beer house like Red Hot Wok. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[aside tag='eating-taiwanese' label='Eating Taiwanese']Many of the Taiwanese restaurants which have risen to national prominence in recent years (Baohaus and Win Son in New York, Pine & Crane in Los Angeles) feature mostly “waisheng” menus. These dishes—like rich beef noodle soup and brothy xiaolongbao—often reflect the cattle and wheat of northern China. But Taiwan’s food is as complex and multilayered as its identity. Silicon Valley’s Taiwanese restaurants go beyond the most widely known corners of the cuisine, often emphasizing the foodways of the Hoklo, who make up an estimated 70% of the island’s population. The impact of 50 years of Japanese colonization is also writ large in the current proliferation of bentos, super-sized versions of the pork chop and rice \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://topics.amcham.com.tw/2019/01/the-biandang-from-japanese-days-to-the-present/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">lunch boxes sold on Taiwan’s railways\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Another popular dish, Chiayi chicken rice, reflects the legacy of U.S. military presence in Taiwan, spurring locals to create a \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.chiayi.gov.tw/en/cp.aspx?n=530\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">meal using surplus poultry\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. It’s still hard, however, to find the flavors of the island’s numerous indigenous tribes, though a charming restaurant called Cambowan in San Mateo used to serve black rice steamed in bamboo before it closed its doors for good during the pandemic.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the most beloved niche restaurants is less than three miles from Cisco headquarters. Stepping through the doors of Taiwan Cafe, with its brick walls and vintage neon signs, is like entering a village in the island’s rural south. “We like that country flavor, xiāng xià de wèi dào,” says owner Sue Chang, whose mother Lin Lan Chih opened the cafe in 2006. Some menu items are very specific to the family’s Hakka heritage. This Chinese minority group has been in Taiwan for hundreds of years; their culinary traditions, such as preserved daikon and bamboo shoots, often reflect scarcity and agricultural work. Taiwan Cafe’s specialty is Wan Luan pork, a mahogany braised hock served on a bed of tangy bamboo shoots, named after Chih’s hometown in tropical Pingtung County. Although Chang came to America at age ten, she speaks fondly and at length about traditional Hakka foods, including thick handmade ban tiao rice noodles and pork intestines stir-fried with ginger and vinegar. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Can Tech Save Taiwanese Restaurants? Third Generation and Beyond\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Many of these legacy Taiwanese restaurants were already in the midst of handing over the reins to the next generation when the pandemic sped up that process. The need to develop new revenue streams, such as deliveries or selling groceries, requires tech skills that the aging founders might not have. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On a recent Saturday morning, a steady stream of customers arrived at Taiwan Cafe to pick up to-go orders which can be ordered once a week. These dishes include ready-to-eat bentos of sliced Wan Luan pork fanned over a bed of white rice topped with bamboo shoots in minced pork sauce, Hakka Delight featuring pressed tofu and pork strips stir-fried with celery and leeks, and Hoklo classics such as oyster omelet. Since March 2020, the nostalgic dining room has been closed, and it’s now filled with three industrial freezers holding vacuum-packed pork hocks, translucent pork-stuffed bah ûan and five-spice rolls waiting to be deep-fried. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">These days, the restaurant is mostly focused on selling frozen specialties, which can be picked up locally or shipped to destinations as far-flung as Minnesota and New Jersey. Three generations are now in the business: Chang’s 23-year old daughter Stephanie Tseng handles the online orders and the Facebook page while her mother and brother run Cafe Taiwan in Pleasanton.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even more dramatic are the changes that have taken place at \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://liangsvillage.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Liang’s Village\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in Cupertino, best known for its beef noodle soup. The family business was first started in 1981 in the San Gabriel Valley as Mama’s Kitchen, a cafeteria featuring braised meats and tofu. The Cupertino outpost was opened by the original Mama Liang’s grandson Austin in 2010, after graduating from U.C. Berkeley. Today, Austin and his siblings Jessica and Erica run the company. In 2018, they raised $26,500 on Kickstarter to start a line of frozen foods inspired by the dishes their father sent with them to college. “Our dad had a restaurant, so we always took sauces home and froze it at school,” says Erica Liang. “Then you boil some noodles and pop it in, and it was just like the best home cooked meal.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897841\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897841\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LiangsTakeout_GHL-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A spread of takeout dishes from Liang's Village in white takeout cartons.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LiangsTakeout_GHL-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LiangsTakeout_GHL-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LiangsTakeout_GHL-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LiangsTakeout_GHL-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LiangsTakeout_GHL-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LiangsTakeout_GHL-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LiangsTakeout_GHL-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LiangsTakeout_GHL-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A spread of takeout dishes from Liang’s Village. \u003ccite>(Grace Hwang Lynch)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the beginning of the pandemic, they sold only two items: beef noodle soup and red oil wontons. Now, the newly minted \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.mamaliangs.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mama Liang’s\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> brand has a sleek, English-language website selling 19 products. Customers can get frozen meals like minced pork sauce, stewed pig’s feet and caramelized scallion noodles shipped nationwide. They’ve even dabbled in cooking videos: Earlier in May, Jessica did a demonstration of their beef noodle kit for this year’s online version of the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tafestival.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taiwanese American Cultural Festival\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, which is normally held in San Francisco’s Union Square. Meanwhile, the dining room remains closed, and Mama Liang’s grandchildren don’t know exactly what the future holds. “It’s a little bit hard to kind of decide on which way we’re going,” says Jessica Liang, who is waiting to see if conditions are ripe to allow restaurants to fully open this summer. “It’s really hard to justify opening a restaurant if it’s not 100% capacity.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Meanwhile, just a few blocks down Stevens Creek Boulevard, Bobby Chan is holding out hope of filling Mama Chen’s dining room soon. “People love to dine in instead of to-go,” he says. And he has a point. Takeout bentos and meal kits, like Zoom and FaceTime, have helped many people get through this year. But there’s something inherently un-Taiwanese about eating alone in front of a screen. Taiwanese people love to eat together. The sensory experience of trying restaurants with friends, or strolling through a crowded night market together, is as much part of the culture as the food itself.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And while it’s hard to know when these restaurants will return to some sense of normalcy, or how much more this next generation of small business owners will shake up the status quo, one thing’s for certain: Taiwanese restaurants in Silicon Valley are here to stay. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897264\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"127\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish-160x25.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish-768x122.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Grace Hwang Lynch is a San Francisco Bay Area journalist and essayist, with an eye for Asian American culture and food. Her work can be found at PRI, NPR, Tin House and Catapult. She’s at work on a memoir about Taiwanese food and family. Follow her on Twitter \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/GraceHwangLynch\">@GraceHwangLynch\u003c/a>.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897834\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897834\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/SVTaiwanese_FinalInArticlePhoto.jpg\" alt=\"A pair of gua bao, or Taiwanese pork belly buns, on a white plate, against a stylized blue backdrop.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1277\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/SVTaiwanese_FinalInArticlePhoto.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/SVTaiwanese_FinalInArticlePhoto-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/SVTaiwanese_FinalInArticlePhoto-1020x678.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/SVTaiwanese_FinalInArticlePhoto-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/SVTaiwanese_FinalInArticlePhoto-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/SVTaiwanese_FinalInArticlePhoto-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u003cem>(Photo by Beth LaBerge; design by Rebecca Kao)\u003c/em>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">KQED’s \u003c/i>\u003c/em>Eating Taiwanese in the Bay\u003cem>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\"> is a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/eatingtaiwanese\">series of stories\u003c/a> exploring Taiwanese food culture in all of its glorious, delicious complexity.\u003c/i>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__dropcapShortcode__dropcap\">D\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>riving down Stevens Creek Boulevard in Cupertino, it’s easier to find a boba drink than a Frappuccino. Hungry teenagers roam shopping centers looking for hot dogs wrapped in milk bread. And “bento,” more often than not, means a multi-compartmented Taiwanese feast of pork chop, rice, vegetables and braised egg. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s not by chance that Silicon Valley became ground zero for the Bay Area’s Taiwanese food scene. Santa Clara County’s Taiwanese population is second in the U.S. only to Los Angeles County. Mom-and-pop Taiwanese eateries proliferated along with the rise of personal computers and the internet. Before long, Taiwanese Americans throughout Northern California knew that if they wanted a decent oyster omelet or beef noodle soup, chances were they’d have to trek out to a strip mall in Milpitas or Cupertino.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But just as new start-ups have forced the legacy tech companies to evolve, many of Silicon Valley’s most beloved Taiwanese restaurants now face a turning point as their founders age and the pandemic continues to hamstring their business. \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/Mama-Chens-Kitchen-292054490826/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mama Chen’s Kitchen\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is a sunny Cupertino restaurant known for its Taiwanese small bites, including gua bao and stinky tofu—foods best enjoyed fresh out of the steamer or wok and shared with friends. Like Apple’s new offices across the street, however, the dining room’s glossy tables mostly sat empty during a recent lunch hour. “You can imagine how many people work there, I think more than 20,000 people,” owner Bobby Chan says of his depleted customer base. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897843\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1805px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897843\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/025_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021.jpg\" alt=\"A plate of fried stinky tofu with a side of pickled cabbage on a white countertop.\" width=\"1805\" height=\"1203\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/025_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021.jpg 1805w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/025_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/025_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/025_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/025_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/025_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1805px) 100vw, 1805px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fried stinky tofu: a classic Taiwanese street food dish. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Chan started the restaurant in 2012 with his mother-in-law, affectionately known in the Taiwanese American community as “Mama Chen.” These days, it’s one of the many Taiwanese spots across the Valley that are struggling to reinvent themselves during the pandemic. But there’s good news too. A second generation of Taiwanese American restaurant owners have taken the reins from their parents, using social media to sell traditional foods in ways no one could have imagined when they first opened their doors. Their restaurants’ continued success speaks to an underlying truth that hasn’t changed in 20 or 30 years: If you want to understand the Bay Area’s Taiwanese food community, you have to spend time in Silicon Valley.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Taiwan’s Brain Drain and the Rise of High Tech\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I first moved to San Jose as a kid in the early 1980s. My family was part of a wave of Taiwanese Americans lured by growing companies such as IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Apple. Like many immigrants from Taiwan in the 1960s and ’70s, my parents came to the United States to pursue advanced degrees in science and engineering, part of the “brain drain” of the island’s most highly educated citizens who were newly eligible to go to America under the Immigration Act of 1965. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“You had a larger number of immigrants that could come from China, from Taiwan,” explains Franklin Ng, professor of anthropology at Fresno State and author of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Taiwanese Americans\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. “A very, very fortuitously historic fact was that the United States was beginning to move into what you might call the computer age. And micro-conductors were very important at this time. And it just happened that UC Berkeley, Stanford, Stanford Industrial Park, Santa Clara, this area was important as a sort of petri dish for innovation.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But engineers weren’t necessarily good cooks. While there were restaurants serving American Chinese and Cantonese food, there weren’t many that could dish up the sweet and savory flavors, the oysters and squid, or the chewy rice and tapioca confections typical of my family’s Fujianese (or Hoklo) ancestors, who settled in Taiwan beginning in the 1600s. Nor was it easy to find the wheat-based noodles and pancakes popularized by the post-1949 transplants who arrived from China after the Chinese Civil War—the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://ketagalanmedia.com/2018/12/08/history-taiwanese-identity/?fbclid=IwAR0DS4diOwKtO0AC855hk5V0x4BwonqRnmrdNIUAH5e58QfAnWd1PLo92yw\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">self-described waishengren\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> (literally, “people born outside the province” or “foreign-born people” in Mandarin).\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My parents drove us all over the Valley searching for the madeleines of their youth: stretchy oyster omelets drizzled with sweet red chili-miso sauce, squid soup zingy with black vinegar or the warm goodness of fresh-pressed soy milk. Eventually, we found these foods and more, ordering xiaolongbao off the menu at a lunch-special joint and slurping pork chop noodles in the back of an ice cream parlor.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897840\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1702px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897840\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/001_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021.jpg\" alt=\"A Taiwanese oyster omelette on a square plate, on a white countertop.\" width=\"1702\" height=\"1135\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/001_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021.jpg 1702w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/001_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/001_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/001_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/001_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/001_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1702px) 100vw, 1702px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mama Chen’s elegant version of an oyster omelet, a popular Taiwanese street food. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Luckily, changes in U.S. immigration policies also allowed for family reunification, which proved to be a further boon for the burgeoning Taiwanese restaurant scene. Chin-Shin Yang, known by her married last name “Mama Chen,” was one of the many Taiwanese immigrants who arrived in the United States in the 1980s. At first, she started selling \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-06-09/savory-treat-dragon-boat-festival-and-aunties-who-make-them\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">bah tsàng\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, homemade leaf-wrapped rice dumplings stuffed with pork and other goodies, directly to the Taiwanese American community. By 1997 she developed enough of a following that she and her son-in-law opened their first restaurant in Milpitas, named Southland (“Tainan” in Chinese) after her hometown in Southern Taiwan. A year later, they opened another outpost in the Cupertino Village shopping center, anchored by a Ranch 99 supermarket. Those restaurants have since closed or been sold, but Mama Chen became well known in the community, often donating meals for church events or the annual Taiwanese American Cultural Festival. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897839\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1762px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897839\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/006_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021.jpg\" alt=\"Taiwanese bah tsang (or leaf-wrapped rice dumpling) in a white bowl on a white countertop.\" width=\"1762\" height=\"1175\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/006_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021.jpg 1762w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/006_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/006_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/006_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/006_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/006_Cupertino_MamaChensKitchen_05172021-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1762px) 100vw, 1762px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mama Chen started off just selling bah tsang within the local Taiwanese community. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2012, Chen and her son-in-law opened Mama Chen’s Kitchen at its current location on Stevens Creek Boulevard. Sitting down to a meal there reminds me of the area’s earliest Taiwanese restaurants—tidy family businesses that served small plates to be shared. After Chen herself passed away several years ago, Chan, her son-in-law, has continued to run the restaurant. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Many of Silicon Valley’s oldest Taiwanese restaurants opened in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In addition to \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.southlandcafe.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Southland Cafe\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in Cupertino, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://www.queenhouserestaurant.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Queen House\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> opened on Castro Street in Mountain View and \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://www.taiwancafe.me/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taiwan Cafe\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> set up shop in Milpitas. In 2000, I came back to my hometown after being away for most of the 1990s for college and work, and the changes were unmistakable. Computer chip manufacturers were moving overseas, and internet start-ups employed a steady stream of new immigrants from places like Taiwan. Boba shops had sprung up, selling deep-fried fish balls and five spice–scented popcorn chicken to go along with sweet milk teas, all to a Mandopop soundtrack.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the Valley today, you can eat Taiwanese food from dawn until dusk, beginning with a bowl of sweet potato congee at Taiwan Porridge Kingdom and moving on to Southland’s savory rice pudding steamed in a bowl. You can snack on pillowy baked buns stuffed with taro or pork floss at one of the local bakeries and then finish the day with an icy lager and three-cup squid at a beer house like Red Hot Wok. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Many of the Taiwanese restaurants which have risen to national prominence in recent years (Baohaus and Win Son in New York, Pine & Crane in Los Angeles) feature mostly “waisheng” menus. These dishes—like rich beef noodle soup and brothy xiaolongbao—often reflect the cattle and wheat of northern China. But Taiwan’s food is as complex and multilayered as its identity. Silicon Valley’s Taiwanese restaurants go beyond the most widely known corners of the cuisine, often emphasizing the foodways of the Hoklo, who make up an estimated 70% of the island’s population. The impact of 50 years of Japanese colonization is also writ large in the current proliferation of bentos, super-sized versions of the pork chop and rice \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://topics.amcham.com.tw/2019/01/the-biandang-from-japanese-days-to-the-present/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">lunch boxes sold on Taiwan’s railways\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Another popular dish, Chiayi chicken rice, reflects the legacy of U.S. military presence in Taiwan, spurring locals to create a \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.chiayi.gov.tw/en/cp.aspx?n=530\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">meal using surplus poultry\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. It’s still hard, however, to find the flavors of the island’s numerous indigenous tribes, though a charming restaurant called Cambowan in San Mateo used to serve black rice steamed in bamboo before it closed its doors for good during the pandemic.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the most beloved niche restaurants is less than three miles from Cisco headquarters. Stepping through the doors of Taiwan Cafe, with its brick walls and vintage neon signs, is like entering a village in the island’s rural south. “We like that country flavor, xiāng xià de wèi dào,” says owner Sue Chang, whose mother Lin Lan Chih opened the cafe in 2006. Some menu items are very specific to the family’s Hakka heritage. This Chinese minority group has been in Taiwan for hundreds of years; their culinary traditions, such as preserved daikon and bamboo shoots, often reflect scarcity and agricultural work. Taiwan Cafe’s specialty is Wan Luan pork, a mahogany braised hock served on a bed of tangy bamboo shoots, named after Chih’s hometown in tropical Pingtung County. Although Chang came to America at age ten, she speaks fondly and at length about traditional Hakka foods, including thick handmade ban tiao rice noodles and pork intestines stir-fried with ginger and vinegar. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Can Tech Save Taiwanese Restaurants? Third Generation and Beyond\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Many of these legacy Taiwanese restaurants were already in the midst of handing over the reins to the next generation when the pandemic sped up that process. The need to develop new revenue streams, such as deliveries or selling groceries, requires tech skills that the aging founders might not have. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On a recent Saturday morning, a steady stream of customers arrived at Taiwan Cafe to pick up to-go orders which can be ordered once a week. These dishes include ready-to-eat bentos of sliced Wan Luan pork fanned over a bed of white rice topped with bamboo shoots in minced pork sauce, Hakka Delight featuring pressed tofu and pork strips stir-fried with celery and leeks, and Hoklo classics such as oyster omelet. Since March 2020, the nostalgic dining room has been closed, and it’s now filled with three industrial freezers holding vacuum-packed pork hocks, translucent pork-stuffed bah ûan and five-spice rolls waiting to be deep-fried. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">These days, the restaurant is mostly focused on selling frozen specialties, which can be picked up locally or shipped to destinations as far-flung as Minnesota and New Jersey. Three generations are now in the business: Chang’s 23-year old daughter Stephanie Tseng handles the online orders and the Facebook page while her mother and brother run Cafe Taiwan in Pleasanton.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even more dramatic are the changes that have taken place at \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://liangsvillage.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Liang’s Village\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in Cupertino, best known for its beef noodle soup. The family business was first started in 1981 in the San Gabriel Valley as Mama’s Kitchen, a cafeteria featuring braised meats and tofu. The Cupertino outpost was opened by the original Mama Liang’s grandson Austin in 2010, after graduating from U.C. Berkeley. Today, Austin and his siblings Jessica and Erica run the company. In 2018, they raised $26,500 on Kickstarter to start a line of frozen foods inspired by the dishes their father sent with them to college. “Our dad had a restaurant, so we always took sauces home and froze it at school,” says Erica Liang. “Then you boil some noodles and pop it in, and it was just like the best home cooked meal.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897841\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897841\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LiangsTakeout_GHL-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A spread of takeout dishes from Liang's Village in white takeout cartons.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LiangsTakeout_GHL-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LiangsTakeout_GHL-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LiangsTakeout_GHL-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LiangsTakeout_GHL-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LiangsTakeout_GHL-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LiangsTakeout_GHL-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LiangsTakeout_GHL-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LiangsTakeout_GHL-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A spread of takeout dishes from Liang’s Village. \u003ccite>(Grace Hwang Lynch)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the beginning of the pandemic, they sold only two items: beef noodle soup and red oil wontons. Now, the newly minted \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.mamaliangs.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mama Liang’s\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> brand has a sleek, English-language website selling 19 products. Customers can get frozen meals like minced pork sauce, stewed pig’s feet and caramelized scallion noodles shipped nationwide. They’ve even dabbled in cooking videos: Earlier in May, Jessica did a demonstration of their beef noodle kit for this year’s online version of the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tafestival.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taiwanese American Cultural Festival\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, which is normally held in San Francisco’s Union Square. Meanwhile, the dining room remains closed, and Mama Liang’s grandchildren don’t know exactly what the future holds. “It’s a little bit hard to kind of decide on which way we’re going,” says Jessica Liang, who is waiting to see if conditions are ripe to allow restaurants to fully open this summer. “It’s really hard to justify opening a restaurant if it’s not 100% capacity.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Meanwhile, just a few blocks down Stevens Creek Boulevard, Bobby Chan is holding out hope of filling Mama Chen’s dining room soon. “People love to dine in instead of to-go,” he says. And he has a point. Takeout bentos and meal kits, like Zoom and FaceTime, have helped many people get through this year. But there’s something inherently un-Taiwanese about eating alone in front of a screen. Taiwanese people love to eat together. The sensory experience of trying restaurants with friends, or strolling through a crowded night market together, is as much part of the culture as the food itself.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And while it’s hard to know when these restaurants will return to some sense of normalcy, or how much more this next generation of small business owners will shake up the status quo, one thing’s for certain: Taiwanese restaurants in Silicon Valley are here to stay. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897264\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"127\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish-160x25.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish-768x122.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Grace Hwang Lynch is a San Francisco Bay Area journalist and essayist, with an eye for Asian American culture and food. Her work can be found at PRI, NPR, Tin House and Catapult. She’s at work on a memoir about Taiwanese food and family. Follow her on Twitter \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/GraceHwangLynch\">@GraceHwangLynch\u003c/a>.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Growing Asian Produce Helped This Sonoma Farmer Connect With Her Taiwanese Heritage",
"headTitle": "Growing Asian Produce Helped This Sonoma Farmer Connect With Her Taiwanese Heritage | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897763\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897763\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarm_InArticle.jpg\" alt=\"Leslie Wiser pushes a plow in a field; the backdrop of the field is shaded blue.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1277\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarm_InArticle.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarm_InArticle-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarm_InArticle-1020x678.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarm_InArticle-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarm_InArticle-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarm_InArticle-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u003cem>(Photo by Sarah Deragon; design by Rebecca Kao)\u003c/em>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">KQED’s \u003c/i>\u003c/em>Eating Taiwanese in the Bay\u003cem>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\"> is a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/eatingtaiwanese\">series of stories\u003c/a> exploring Taiwanese food culture in all of its glorious, delicious complexity.\u003c/i>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[dropcap]A[/dropcap]cross from a few sheep bleating and baaing behind a fence, rainbow pride and Black Lives Matter flags softly wave in the wind. A “Stop Asian Hate” poster is propped against a wall. Around the corner, the property opens up to a 1.5-acre farm filled with trellises of bitter melon, rows of napa cabbage, and hoophouses holding dozens of other Asian herbs and vegetables. All signs, perhaps, that this is a farm with a strong sense of its own identity. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But when Leslie Wiser founded Sebastopol’s Radical Family Farms in 2018, she didn’t necessarily feel very connected to her Taiwanese and Chinese heritage. Over the course of the past three years, however, she has become one of the go-to local farmers for Asian produce—and she’s learned a lot about her roots in the process. Wiser runs the farm, and her partner, Sarah Deragon, grows flowers there. It is, as Wiser describes it, a chemical-free, low-till small farm specializing in Asian heritage vegetables and herbs. Wiser says her Chinese-Taiwanese background informs her choices, and in turn, she is also giving back to the culture here in the Bay Area through farming, food and education.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“The farm has been great in terms of personal exploration of this side of me that I didn’t know about,” Wiser, who is in her early 40s, says. Her mom grew up in Taiwan as part of the generation of people who left mainland China during the Communist war (a group known, collectively, as “waishengren” or the “1949’ers”); her father’s side of the family is German and Polish-Jewish.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Growing up in the Midwest—in Chicago, Cleveland, Minnesota and Indiana—Wiser says she never celebrated Chinese or Taiwanese holidays such as Lunar New Year. Her family did hold on to a few aspects of Taiwanese culture, including ordering a thousand copies of \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://sf.eater.com/2020/11/17/21570459/radical-family-farms-fu-pei-mei-chinese-cookbook-taiwan-cook-off\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fu Pei Mei’s popular cookbook from Taiwan in the early ’80s\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, and her mom sometimes cooked Chinese dishes. By and large, though, Wiser didn’t have much contact with the Chinese and Taiwanese sides of her identity in her day-to-day life. Before growing them herself, she had never even tried some of the vegetables on the farm, such as bitter melon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“[The farm is]…a way for me and my kids to hold on to our Asian heritage that has, for the most part, been assimilated,” notes Wiser, whose children have Chinese, Korean, Scandanavian, German and Polish-Jewish ancestry. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As for the “radical” in the farm’s name, Wiser says that’s a nod to her family story: Her parents married shortly after the Loving Act of 1967, during a time when interracial marriages in the Midwest were not the norm. Wiser, who is queer, is mixed race, as are her children, and the farm takes an intersectional stance on social justice issues—hence all of the flags waving proudly out front.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897804\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1613px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897804\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarm_paigegreen.jpg\" alt=\"A family portrait of Leslie Wiser, her wife Sarah Deragon and their two children, standing in front of the lush green backdrop of their farm.\" width=\"1613\" height=\"1075\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarm_paigegreen.jpg 1613w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarm_paigegreen-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarm_paigegreen-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarm_paigegreen-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarm_paigegreen-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarm_paigegreen-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1613px) 100vw, 1613px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Wiser (back right) started Radical Family Farms in part because she wanted to give her kids the experience of growing up on a farm. \u003ccite>(Paige Green)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">None of Wiser’s family members in Taiwan have been farmers, but there is a rich history of agriculture in Taiwan, from its tea farms to its lush fields of sweet potatoes, pineapples and rice. Her own path to farming was somewhat circuitous: The summer after her sophomore year in college, after taking a class on food and farming, Wiser worked on a farm in Alaska for one season, staying with a family with young children who also helped out on the farm. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Though Wiser enjoyed the experience, she never envisioned that she would pursue farming as a career. “I never thought I could…have the land access,” she says. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instead, she finished college, then graduate school, and started working in digital media, marketing, animation and project management. After having children, though, she started to dream of raising her kids on a farm the way she’d seen that family in Alaska do. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“It took years of thinking about it and wanting to do it,” Wiser says. She looked for land in the Midwest, but eventually moved to Sonoma, completing a master gardeners program there, and eventually found the three-acre farm in Sebastopol.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the Bay Area, more small-scale, Asian American-run farms specializing in Asian vegetables have cropped up in recent years: Namu Farm led by Kristyn Leach in Winters, CA; Shao Shan Farm in Bolinas; and Mai Nguyen in Sonoma, who also founded the Asian American Farmers Alliance.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wiser’s farm grows as many as 50 different crop varieties on the 1.5 acres that she currently uses: Japanese eggplants, Thai and Italian basil, si gua (aka sponge gourd or loofah), rau ram (Vietnamese coriander), kabocha squash, bitter melon, winter melon, sweet corn, Chinese broccoli, perilla leaves—and a lot more. Wiser is even experimenting with planting things that likely have never been farmed commercially in the Bay Area—red quinoa, a grain eaten by indigenous Taiwanese people, for instance. Most of the seeds are from Oakland-based Kitazawa Seed Company, which was started more than 100 years ago by a Japanese American man named Gijiu Kitazawa and specializes in Asian vegetable seeds. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The farm reminds me of my wai po’s—my maternal grandmother’s—backyard trees in Southern California, as well as my parents’ backyard, where they planted Asian fruits and vegetables that were hard to find in markets here in the United States. For immigrants from Taiwan, these fruits—persimmons, guavas, longans and Taiwanese mountain apples shaped like bells—are reminders of home.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Radical Family Farms isn’t \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">just \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">a tribute to the farmer’s family ancestry—it’s also a business. It mostly operates under a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) model during its May-through-November growing season. The every-other-week \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.radicalfamilyfarms.com/farmstore\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">CSA produce and herb box\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is delivered throughout the Bay Area, with pickup points at many popular, Asian American–run restaurants. (There’s currently a waiting list to join.) Wiser’s partner, Sarah Deragon, manages a flower CSA box, which can be delivered together or separately with the produce.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Harvesting began this month, and Wiser and her small staff are busy checking on the seedlings, chasing away gophers and admiring some of the produce that’s already flourishing. In a matter of a few days, the gophers have eaten more than a dozen cabbage heads. “You can do your best to plan ahead but sometimes it doesn’t work out that way,” she says.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897806\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897806\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarms_hands_MC-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Two hands cupped together holding a large quantity of tiny quinoa seeds.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarms_hands_MC-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarms_hands_MC-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarms_hands_MC-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarms_hands_MC-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarms_hands_MC-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarms_hands_MC-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarms_hands_MC-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarms_hands_MC-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Quinoa seeds from Taiwan are among the Asian varietals grown on the farm. \u003ccite>(Momo Chang)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n many ways, Radical Family Farms’ exploration of Taiwanese identity has extended far beyond the borders of the farm itself. While the farm is only starting its third season, Wiser has already established working relationships with a number of Taiwanese and other Asian American restaurants in the Bay Area such as \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.liondancecafe.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lion Dance Cafe\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://www.taiwanbento.us/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taiwan Bento\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.goodtoeatdumplings.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Good-to-Eat Dumplings\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, which all source from the farm and have become collaborators of sorts. (They are also CSA pickup points.) \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oakland’s Good-to-Eat Dumplings specializes in handmade Taiwanese potstickers. Co-founded by Tony Tung and Angie Lin, the restaurant, based at Original Pattern Brewing in Oakland’s Jack London neighborhood, had been looking for locally grown, Asian produce to use for their Taiwanese-style pan-fried dumplings and gua bao. Instead of buying packaged fermented mustard greens, which are readily available at most Chinese markets, Good-to-Eat Dumplings ferments their own version using mustard greens grown on Radical Family Farms. The fermented greens are used in their pork belly gua bao, “one of the most famous Taiwanese street food staples,” Lin notes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[aside tag='eating-taiwanese' label='Eating Taiwanese']Starting this year, the farm will sun-dry the mustard greens for the restaurant on new drying racks, an idea inspired by a Radical Family Farms CSA member, Henry Hsu.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Through the partnership with Leslie, we learned a lot too,” Lin, an immigrant from Taiwan, says about figuring out which Taiwanese fruits and vegetables can grow in the Bay Area.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Christopher Yang, whose parents were born in Taiwan, began sourcing produce from the farm for his two Taiwanese-inspired pop-ups, Hén-zhi and El Chino Grande, in 2019. Yang turns the farm’s wax gourd, or winter melon, into a syrup by cooking it with sugar, then strains it into black tea. Or he’ll braise the winter melon with smoked shoyu dashi broth, serving it with a shrimp coconut leche de tigre. The relationship between restaurant and farm is “symbiotic,” Yang says. “I love to develop menu items with products [Leslie] is excited about.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even the farm’s CSA members get more than just a box of produce; they, too, have an opportunity to learn more about Taiwanese food culture. And here’s where the farm really puts “radical” front and center—where farming and activism intersect. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Two years ago, for instance, members gathered for a reading of \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://gracelin.com/the-ugly-vegetables/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ugly Vegetables\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a children’s book by Grace Lin. The family-friendly event started with a land acknowledgment by Christine Su, a CSA member and one of the farm’s first customers, honoring the coastal Miwok and Pomo people, who still live in the area. “We are grateful to be settlers on this land, and also are responsible for stewarding it carefully while sharing our own cultural traditions,” Su told the audience. The book reading was bilingual in Mandarin—by Su, whose family is from Taiwan—and in English, by Adrian Chang of \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/mykitsunecafe/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My Kitsune Cafe\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. After the reading, children had the opportunity to look at and eat some of the vegetables from the book. Many of the plants were labeled, so that kids could see how a bitter melon, for instance, grows on the vine. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For many Asian Americans at the event, this celebration of vegetables not found in many Western grocery stores felt incredibly moving. “I never imagined sitting on a haystack, reading to kids in Mandarin about our vegetables, and then touring the same veggies like bitter melon and A-choy growing a few feet away, with the same kind of reverence I feel like is often reserved for heirloom tomatoes in the Bay,” Su says. “I really wish that I had had that growing up here in America.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Many of the CSA members, 70% of whom Wiser estimates to be Asian American, have become friends and co-conspirators. “We all want to learn more about our own Asian American culture and heritage,” Wiser says. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There is a lot to learn. Not everyone knows how to cook a winter melon, after all. One CSA member, Linda Tay Esposito, a food business consultant and a cooking instructor, has created a monthly itinerary based on the seasonal produce that comes in the boxes, including a Zoom cooking class that started this month. “The CSA is a community; we’re all tied together through food,” says Esposito, who was previously the director of La Cocina’s Municipal Marketplace in SF’s Tenderloin district. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Last year, the names of the vegetables in each box were written on beautiful hand-lettered cards created by artist Jess Wu, which were made available to CSA members on the farm’s website. The cards were written in pinyin, bopomofo (the phonetic alphabet used in Taiwan) and Chinese characters, and some were also translated into Korean, Thai, Vietnamese and Japanese. CSA members also get access to a website full of recipes, many of them submitted by fellow customers, such as Chinese sweet and spicy pickles and winter melon soup.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897807\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2153px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897807\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarms_CSA_SD-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"The vegetables from a CSA produce box, including long beans, okra and several varieties of eggplant, arranged artfully on a white wooden board.\" width=\"2153\" height=\"2560\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarms_CSA_SD-scaled.jpg 2153w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarms_CSA_SD-800x951.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarms_CSA_SD-1020x1213.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarms_CSA_SD-160x190.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarms_CSA_SD-768x913.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarms_CSA_SD-1292x1536.jpg 1292w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarms_CSA_SD-1723x2048.jpg 1723w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarms_CSA_SD-1920x2282.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2153px) 100vw, 2153px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The produce from one of last year’s CSA boxes, each vegetable labeled with its Chinese name. \u003ccite>(Sarah Deragon)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">While most of the farm’s focus is on the family’s Asian roots, Wiser is also exploring her father’s ancestry. She lived for some time with her paternal grandparents in Indianapolis, Indiana. She saw how her grandmother, an immigrant of German and Polish-Jewish ancestry, yearned for her own homeland—the way she shopped for vegetables, baked goods and pantry items that were tied to her culture. “I learned sourcing from my grandmother,” Wiser notes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Last season, Wiser began planting varieties of gooseberries, currants and kohlrabi in honor of her grandmother, who passed away in October before she could taste the fruits of her granddaughter’s labor. When I visited the farm in April, Wiser showed me one of the gooseberry plants—waist-high scrubs that will eventually have little green orbs popping out. “I think my grandmother would be very proud.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Near the gooseberry bush are a few other berry plants that speak to the farm’s mission and identity: Sichuan peppercorns, with their prickly heat that helps form the foundation for Taiwan’s national dish of beef noodle soup, and sweet goji berries, whose medicinal qualities infused the soups my own mother made for me after I gave birth to my daughter—part of a rich tradition of taking care of each other through food.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897264\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"127\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish-160x25.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish-768x122.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.momochang.com/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Momo Chang\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is a freelance writer based in the East Bay and the alumni coordinator for \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://oaklandvoices.us/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oakland Voices\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a project of the \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://mije.org/\">Maynard Institute for Journalism Education\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Follow her on Twitter \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/_momo_chang\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">@_momo_chang\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"title": "Growing Asian Produce Helped This Sonoma Farmer Connect With Her Taiwanese Heritage | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897763\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897763\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarm_InArticle.jpg\" alt=\"Leslie Wiser pushes a plow in a field; the backdrop of the field is shaded blue.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1277\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarm_InArticle.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarm_InArticle-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarm_InArticle-1020x678.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarm_InArticle-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarm_InArticle-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarm_InArticle-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u003cem>(Photo by Sarah Deragon; design by Rebecca Kao)\u003c/em>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">KQED’s \u003c/i>\u003c/em>Eating Taiwanese in the Bay\u003cem>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\"> is a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/eatingtaiwanese\">series of stories\u003c/a> exploring Taiwanese food culture in all of its glorious, delicious complexity.\u003c/i>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__dropcapShortcode__dropcap\">A\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>cross from a few sheep bleating and baaing behind a fence, rainbow pride and Black Lives Matter flags softly wave in the wind. A “Stop Asian Hate” poster is propped against a wall. Around the corner, the property opens up to a 1.5-acre farm filled with trellises of bitter melon, rows of napa cabbage, and hoophouses holding dozens of other Asian herbs and vegetables. All signs, perhaps, that this is a farm with a strong sense of its own identity. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But when Leslie Wiser founded Sebastopol’s Radical Family Farms in 2018, she didn’t necessarily feel very connected to her Taiwanese and Chinese heritage. Over the course of the past three years, however, she has become one of the go-to local farmers for Asian produce—and she’s learned a lot about her roots in the process. Wiser runs the farm, and her partner, Sarah Deragon, grows flowers there. It is, as Wiser describes it, a chemical-free, low-till small farm specializing in Asian heritage vegetables and herbs. Wiser says her Chinese-Taiwanese background informs her choices, and in turn, she is also giving back to the culture here in the Bay Area through farming, food and education.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“The farm has been great in terms of personal exploration of this side of me that I didn’t know about,” Wiser, who is in her early 40s, says. Her mom grew up in Taiwan as part of the generation of people who left mainland China during the Communist war (a group known, collectively, as “waishengren” or the “1949’ers”); her father’s side of the family is German and Polish-Jewish.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Growing up in the Midwest—in Chicago, Cleveland, Minnesota and Indiana—Wiser says she never celebrated Chinese or Taiwanese holidays such as Lunar New Year. Her family did hold on to a few aspects of Taiwanese culture, including ordering a thousand copies of \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://sf.eater.com/2020/11/17/21570459/radical-family-farms-fu-pei-mei-chinese-cookbook-taiwan-cook-off\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fu Pei Mei’s popular cookbook from Taiwan in the early ’80s\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, and her mom sometimes cooked Chinese dishes. By and large, though, Wiser didn’t have much contact with the Chinese and Taiwanese sides of her identity in her day-to-day life. Before growing them herself, she had never even tried some of the vegetables on the farm, such as bitter melon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“[The farm is]…a way for me and my kids to hold on to our Asian heritage that has, for the most part, been assimilated,” notes Wiser, whose children have Chinese, Korean, Scandanavian, German and Polish-Jewish ancestry. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As for the “radical” in the farm’s name, Wiser says that’s a nod to her family story: Her parents married shortly after the Loving Act of 1967, during a time when interracial marriages in the Midwest were not the norm. Wiser, who is queer, is mixed race, as are her children, and the farm takes an intersectional stance on social justice issues—hence all of the flags waving proudly out front.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897804\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1613px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897804\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarm_paigegreen.jpg\" alt=\"A family portrait of Leslie Wiser, her wife Sarah Deragon and their two children, standing in front of the lush green backdrop of their farm.\" width=\"1613\" height=\"1075\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarm_paigegreen.jpg 1613w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarm_paigegreen-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarm_paigegreen-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarm_paigegreen-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarm_paigegreen-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarm_paigegreen-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1613px) 100vw, 1613px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Wiser (back right) started Radical Family Farms in part because she wanted to give her kids the experience of growing up on a farm. \u003ccite>(Paige Green)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">None of Wiser’s family members in Taiwan have been farmers, but there is a rich history of agriculture in Taiwan, from its tea farms to its lush fields of sweet potatoes, pineapples and rice. Her own path to farming was somewhat circuitous: The summer after her sophomore year in college, after taking a class on food and farming, Wiser worked on a farm in Alaska for one season, staying with a family with young children who also helped out on the farm. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Though Wiser enjoyed the experience, she never envisioned that she would pursue farming as a career. “I never thought I could…have the land access,” she says. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instead, she finished college, then graduate school, and started working in digital media, marketing, animation and project management. After having children, though, she started to dream of raising her kids on a farm the way she’d seen that family in Alaska do. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“It took years of thinking about it and wanting to do it,” Wiser says. She looked for land in the Midwest, but eventually moved to Sonoma, completing a master gardeners program there, and eventually found the three-acre farm in Sebastopol.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the Bay Area, more small-scale, Asian American-run farms specializing in Asian vegetables have cropped up in recent years: Namu Farm led by Kristyn Leach in Winters, CA; Shao Shan Farm in Bolinas; and Mai Nguyen in Sonoma, who also founded the Asian American Farmers Alliance.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wiser’s farm grows as many as 50 different crop varieties on the 1.5 acres that she currently uses: Japanese eggplants, Thai and Italian basil, si gua (aka sponge gourd or loofah), rau ram (Vietnamese coriander), kabocha squash, bitter melon, winter melon, sweet corn, Chinese broccoli, perilla leaves—and a lot more. Wiser is even experimenting with planting things that likely have never been farmed commercially in the Bay Area—red quinoa, a grain eaten by indigenous Taiwanese people, for instance. Most of the seeds are from Oakland-based Kitazawa Seed Company, which was started more than 100 years ago by a Japanese American man named Gijiu Kitazawa and specializes in Asian vegetable seeds. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The farm reminds me of my wai po’s—my maternal grandmother’s—backyard trees in Southern California, as well as my parents’ backyard, where they planted Asian fruits and vegetables that were hard to find in markets here in the United States. For immigrants from Taiwan, these fruits—persimmons, guavas, longans and Taiwanese mountain apples shaped like bells—are reminders of home.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Radical Family Farms isn’t \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">just \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">a tribute to the farmer’s family ancestry—it’s also a business. It mostly operates under a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) model during its May-through-November growing season. The every-other-week \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.radicalfamilyfarms.com/farmstore\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">CSA produce and herb box\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is delivered throughout the Bay Area, with pickup points at many popular, Asian American–run restaurants. (There’s currently a waiting list to join.) Wiser’s partner, Sarah Deragon, manages a flower CSA box, which can be delivered together or separately with the produce.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Harvesting began this month, and Wiser and her small staff are busy checking on the seedlings, chasing away gophers and admiring some of the produce that’s already flourishing. In a matter of a few days, the gophers have eaten more than a dozen cabbage heads. “You can do your best to plan ahead but sometimes it doesn’t work out that way,” she says.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897806\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897806\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarms_hands_MC-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Two hands cupped together holding a large quantity of tiny quinoa seeds.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarms_hands_MC-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarms_hands_MC-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarms_hands_MC-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarms_hands_MC-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarms_hands_MC-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarms_hands_MC-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarms_hands_MC-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarms_hands_MC-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Quinoa seeds from Taiwan are among the Asian varietals grown on the farm. \u003ccite>(Momo Chang)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__dropcapShortcode__dropcap\">I\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>n many ways, Radical Family Farms’ exploration of Taiwanese identity has extended far beyond the borders of the farm itself. While the farm is only starting its third season, Wiser has already established working relationships with a number of Taiwanese and other Asian American restaurants in the Bay Area such as \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.liondancecafe.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lion Dance Cafe\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://www.taiwanbento.us/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taiwan Bento\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.goodtoeatdumplings.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Good-to-Eat Dumplings\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, which all source from the farm and have become collaborators of sorts. (They are also CSA pickup points.) \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oakland’s Good-to-Eat Dumplings specializes in handmade Taiwanese potstickers. Co-founded by Tony Tung and Angie Lin, the restaurant, based at Original Pattern Brewing in Oakland’s Jack London neighborhood, had been looking for locally grown, Asian produce to use for their Taiwanese-style pan-fried dumplings and gua bao. Instead of buying packaged fermented mustard greens, which are readily available at most Chinese markets, Good-to-Eat Dumplings ferments their own version using mustard greens grown on Radical Family Farms. The fermented greens are used in their pork belly gua bao, “one of the most famous Taiwanese street food staples,” Lin notes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Starting this year, the farm will sun-dry the mustard greens for the restaurant on new drying racks, an idea inspired by a Radical Family Farms CSA member, Henry Hsu.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Through the partnership with Leslie, we learned a lot too,” Lin, an immigrant from Taiwan, says about figuring out which Taiwanese fruits and vegetables can grow in the Bay Area.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Christopher Yang, whose parents were born in Taiwan, began sourcing produce from the farm for his two Taiwanese-inspired pop-ups, Hén-zhi and El Chino Grande, in 2019. Yang turns the farm’s wax gourd, or winter melon, into a syrup by cooking it with sugar, then strains it into black tea. Or he’ll braise the winter melon with smoked shoyu dashi broth, serving it with a shrimp coconut leche de tigre. The relationship between restaurant and farm is “symbiotic,” Yang says. “I love to develop menu items with products [Leslie] is excited about.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even the farm’s CSA members get more than just a box of produce; they, too, have an opportunity to learn more about Taiwanese food culture. And here’s where the farm really puts “radical” front and center—where farming and activism intersect. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Two years ago, for instance, members gathered for a reading of \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://gracelin.com/the-ugly-vegetables/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ugly Vegetables\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a children’s book by Grace Lin. The family-friendly event started with a land acknowledgment by Christine Su, a CSA member and one of the farm’s first customers, honoring the coastal Miwok and Pomo people, who still live in the area. “We are grateful to be settlers on this land, and also are responsible for stewarding it carefully while sharing our own cultural traditions,” Su told the audience. The book reading was bilingual in Mandarin—by Su, whose family is from Taiwan—and in English, by Adrian Chang of \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/mykitsunecafe/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My Kitsune Cafe\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. After the reading, children had the opportunity to look at and eat some of the vegetables from the book. Many of the plants were labeled, so that kids could see how a bitter melon, for instance, grows on the vine. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For many Asian Americans at the event, this celebration of vegetables not found in many Western grocery stores felt incredibly moving. “I never imagined sitting on a haystack, reading to kids in Mandarin about our vegetables, and then touring the same veggies like bitter melon and A-choy growing a few feet away, with the same kind of reverence I feel like is often reserved for heirloom tomatoes in the Bay,” Su says. “I really wish that I had had that growing up here in America.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Many of the CSA members, 70% of whom Wiser estimates to be Asian American, have become friends and co-conspirators. “We all want to learn more about our own Asian American culture and heritage,” Wiser says. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There is a lot to learn. Not everyone knows how to cook a winter melon, after all. One CSA member, Linda Tay Esposito, a food business consultant and a cooking instructor, has created a monthly itinerary based on the seasonal produce that comes in the boxes, including a Zoom cooking class that started this month. “The CSA is a community; we’re all tied together through food,” says Esposito, who was previously the director of La Cocina’s Municipal Marketplace in SF’s Tenderloin district. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Last year, the names of the vegetables in each box were written on beautiful hand-lettered cards created by artist Jess Wu, which were made available to CSA members on the farm’s website. The cards were written in pinyin, bopomofo (the phonetic alphabet used in Taiwan) and Chinese characters, and some were also translated into Korean, Thai, Vietnamese and Japanese. CSA members also get access to a website full of recipes, many of them submitted by fellow customers, such as Chinese sweet and spicy pickles and winter melon soup.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897807\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2153px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897807\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarms_CSA_SD-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"The vegetables from a CSA produce box, including long beans, okra and several varieties of eggplant, arranged artfully on a white wooden board.\" width=\"2153\" height=\"2560\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarms_CSA_SD-scaled.jpg 2153w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarms_CSA_SD-800x951.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarms_CSA_SD-1020x1213.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarms_CSA_SD-160x190.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarms_CSA_SD-768x913.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarms_CSA_SD-1292x1536.jpg 1292w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarms_CSA_SD-1723x2048.jpg 1723w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/RadicalFamilyFarms_CSA_SD-1920x2282.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2153px) 100vw, 2153px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The produce from one of last year’s CSA boxes, each vegetable labeled with its Chinese name. \u003ccite>(Sarah Deragon)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">While most of the farm’s focus is on the family’s Asian roots, Wiser is also exploring her father’s ancestry. She lived for some time with her paternal grandparents in Indianapolis, Indiana. She saw how her grandmother, an immigrant of German and Polish-Jewish ancestry, yearned for her own homeland—the way she shopped for vegetables, baked goods and pantry items that were tied to her culture. “I learned sourcing from my grandmother,” Wiser notes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Last season, Wiser began planting varieties of gooseberries, currants and kohlrabi in honor of her grandmother, who passed away in October before she could taste the fruits of her granddaughter’s labor. When I visited the farm in April, Wiser showed me one of the gooseberry plants—waist-high scrubs that will eventually have little green orbs popping out. “I think my grandmother would be very proud.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Near the gooseberry bush are a few other berry plants that speak to the farm’s mission and identity: Sichuan peppercorns, with their prickly heat that helps form the foundation for Taiwan’s national dish of beef noodle soup, and sweet goji berries, whose medicinal qualities infused the soups my own mother made for me after I gave birth to my daughter—part of a rich tradition of taking care of each other through food.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897264\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"127\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish-160x25.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish-768x122.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.momochang.com/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Momo Chang\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is a freelance writer based in the East Bay and the alumni coordinator for \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://oaklandvoices.us/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oakland Voices\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a project of the \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://mije.org/\">Maynard Institute for Journalism Education\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Follow her on Twitter \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/_momo_chang\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">@_momo_chang\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "How the Pandemic Brought Taiwanese Food Back to Me",
"headTitle": "How the Pandemic Brought Taiwanese Food Back to Me | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897689\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897689\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/PandemicTaiwanese-InArticle.jpg\" alt=\"A bowl of Pintung cold noodles with peanut sauce, garnished with slivers of cucumber, against a blue backdrop.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1277\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/PandemicTaiwanese-InArticle.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/PandemicTaiwanese-InArticle-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/PandemicTaiwanese-InArticle-1020x678.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/PandemicTaiwanese-InArticle-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/PandemicTaiwanese-InArticle-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/PandemicTaiwanese-InArticle-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u003cem>(Photo by Esmé Weijun Wang; design by Rebecca Kao)\u003c/em>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">KQED’s \u003c/i>\u003c/em>Eating Taiwanese in the Bay\u003cem>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\"> is a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/eatingtaiwanese\">series of stories\u003c/a> exploring Taiwanese food culture in all of its glorious, delicious complexity.\u003c/i>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[dropcap]I[/dropcap] grew up as the daughter of Taiwanese immigrants—first in San Jose, and later in a South Bay suburb clocked as having only a 5.1% Asian population in 1990, when I was in elementary school. Other Asian American students were rare, and Taiwanese American students were even rarer; there were no Taiwanese American kids in my day-to-day life, as far as I knew. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taiwanese cuisine, on the other hand, remained a large part of my childhood. At home I ate light meals of vegetables and fish, with little oil, cooked by my mother. On weekends, my family went to Marina Foods or Ranch 99 for groceries after lunch at Cupertino Village, a mostly Asian shopping and restaurant center where we’d feast on soup dumplings and beef noodle soup, leaf-wrapped zhongzi and spicy string beans limp on the plate. At the end of every meal, we’d go to a \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/FantasiaCupertino/\">boba tea cafe called Fantasia\u003c/a> for thick, buttered toast and boba. Even back then, before boba had been widely recognized by the non-Taiwanese palate, the place was already popular among high school students.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">These days, as a San Francisco resident, I am sometimes asked about where to best enjoy Chinese food in the city, and my answer is usually a verbal shrug. Whereas San Francisco’s famous Chinatown is historically working-class Cantonese, most Taiwanese immigrants to the Bay Area ended up in places like Cupertino, Milpitas, Foster City and Fremont, which is why so many of the region’s Taiwanese restaurants opened there. After I moved to San Francisco, my consumption of Chinese food dropped dramatically—to say nothing of Taiwanese food, which became nonexistent. Approximately a decade had passed since I’d lived in the South Bay, and I didn’t know where to find the dishes that I had grown up eating; visiting Cupertino was no longer a regular part of my schedule. In San Francisco, I was even confused about where to find the Taiwanese grocery brands with which I was so familiar, and relied on my brother and his wife for deliveries of Bull Head barbecue sauce and pink net–wrapped packages of made-in-Taiwan rice noodles.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Near the beginning of the pandemic, a friend sent me a link to \u003ca href=\"https://liangsvillage.com/pages/menu#\">Liang’s Village\u003c/a>, a Cupertino-based Taiwanese restaurant that had newly begun advertising Bay Area-wide delivery ever since it halted dine-in service during lockdown. I was delighted to find that their menu offered so many familiar dishes: preserved egg and tofu with pork sung and scallions, fried pork chop rice, beef and tendon noodle soup, and black bean with pork and bean curd noodles. These were dishes that my mother had made at home, or that I’d eaten during those weekend excursions to Cupertino.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897688\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2397px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897688\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LiangsTofu_EsmeWW.jpg\" alt=\"Against a white background, a bowl of braised tofu topped with chili sauce; a spoon cuts into the tender tofu.\" width=\"2397\" height=\"1595\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LiangsTofu_EsmeWW.jpg 2397w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LiangsTofu_EsmeWW-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LiangsTofu_EsmeWW-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LiangsTofu_EsmeWW-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LiangsTofu_EsmeWW-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LiangsTofu_EsmeWW-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LiangsTofu_EsmeWW-2048x1363.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LiangsTofu_EsmeWW-1920x1278.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2397px) 100vw, 2397px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The stewed tofu with oyster sauce from Liang’s Village provided comfort during the pandemic. \u003ccite>(Esmé Weijun Wang)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Over time, I began to order from Liang’s Village on a regular basis, rediscovering my favorites easily as the restaurant dropped large boxes of food on my doorstep. I’ve ordered four or five servings of the stewed tofu with oyster sauce at a time, enjoying the silken tofu wrapped in a wrinkled bean curd skin anytime I felt like it. When the package of Pingtung cold noodles arrived at my door—called “Cold Peanut Noodle” on the Liang’s Village menu—I dumped the entire mixture of slippery noodles, peanut-sesame sauce and julienned cucumbers into a bowl, which I gleefully enjoyed in bed. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pingtung, a city located in Southern Taiwan, is where the proprietors of Liang’s Village are from. As it happens, it’s also where my mother is from; I was supposed to visit family in the Pingtung countryside in 2020 before COVID derailed those plans. Eating Pingtung-style chilled noodles in peanut sauce was one way of nearing that experience. The Liang’s noodles were almost identical to the ones my mother made when I was growing up, minus the shredded chicken breast that she added along with the slender toothpicks of cucumber. It was a dish to be enjoyed in the summer, when the temperatures sometimes reached the triple digits and we couldn’t fathom eating a hot dish. My mother would summon us with the Taiwanese call, jia bng o’ (“come to eat”). We’d gather around the dining table, waiting for my father to dine first before we all slurped and sighed with gratitude.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[aside tag='eating-taiwanese' label='Eating Taiwanese']Another dish that brought a flood of memories was the stewed duck wings, which Liang’s delivered frozen. My father used to bring home warm baggies of these wings from the hot dish section of Marina Foods throughout my adolescence, stashing them in the fridge for late-night snacking. It was known within the family that the wings belonged primarily to him and me, because my mother and brother didn’t enjoy them. Now, years later, living in San Francisco, I placed the frozen, vacuum-sealed packet from Liang’s Village inside our fridge. Once defrosted, the duck wings had a chewy, occasionally gelatinous texture. Without my father to share them with me, I enjoyed the wings slowly, over a period of several days, though I missed the communal joy that he and I had shared. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of my favorite things from Liang’s is a fresh-squeezed, bottled beverage called \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/B_dtcrOF_f9/\">Honey Grape Fruit Squeeze\u003c/a>. Like many fresh-squeezed juices in Taiwan, this one is cut with tea, and arrives with gorgeous jewels of pulp and chunks of peeled grapefruit that can be forked through the opening. It’s a pleasure that I enjoy by itself like a dessert—a final delight to follow the assortment of familiar dishes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It feels strange that it took a catastrophic, international pandemic—and a restaurant’s need to pivot its business during lockdown—to bring Taiwanese food back into my life. But I’ve been grateful for these familiar comforts. Being able to take solace in a spicy bowl of wrinkly bean curd has brought me closer not only to my family, but also to a culinary lineage of my ancestors.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My parents moved back to Taiwan approximately a decade ago. Only recently did I talk with my mother on the LINE app about visiting near the end of the year. I’ve reached the fabled two-week point after my second dose of the Moderna vaccine; I’ve been able to dream of getting on that thirteen-hour flight again. Meanwhile, however, I have a frozen package of duck wings in the fridge, waiting for me to snip it open and enjoy.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897264\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"127\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish-160x25.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish-768x122.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Esmé Weijun Wang is a Taiwanese American writer. She is the author of \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Border of Paradise\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and the \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">New York Times\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> bestseller \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Collected Schizophrenias\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "It was a game-changer when Liang's Village started delivering to San Francisco during lockdown.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897689\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897689\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/PandemicTaiwanese-InArticle.jpg\" alt=\"A bowl of Pintung cold noodles with peanut sauce, garnished with slivers of cucumber, against a blue backdrop.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1277\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/PandemicTaiwanese-InArticle.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/PandemicTaiwanese-InArticle-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/PandemicTaiwanese-InArticle-1020x678.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/PandemicTaiwanese-InArticle-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/PandemicTaiwanese-InArticle-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/PandemicTaiwanese-InArticle-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u003cem>(Photo by Esmé Weijun Wang; design by Rebecca Kao)\u003c/em>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">KQED’s \u003c/i>\u003c/em>Eating Taiwanese in the Bay\u003cem>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\"> is a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/eatingtaiwanese\">series of stories\u003c/a> exploring Taiwanese food culture in all of its glorious, delicious complexity.\u003c/i>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__dropcapShortcode__dropcap\">I\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp> grew up as the daughter of Taiwanese immigrants—first in San Jose, and later in a South Bay suburb clocked as having only a 5.1% Asian population in 1990, when I was in elementary school. Other Asian American students were rare, and Taiwanese American students were even rarer; there were no Taiwanese American kids in my day-to-day life, as far as I knew. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taiwanese cuisine, on the other hand, remained a large part of my childhood. At home I ate light meals of vegetables and fish, with little oil, cooked by my mother. On weekends, my family went to Marina Foods or Ranch 99 for groceries after lunch at Cupertino Village, a mostly Asian shopping and restaurant center where we’d feast on soup dumplings and beef noodle soup, leaf-wrapped zhongzi and spicy string beans limp on the plate. At the end of every meal, we’d go to a \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/FantasiaCupertino/\">boba tea cafe called Fantasia\u003c/a> for thick, buttered toast and boba. Even back then, before boba had been widely recognized by the non-Taiwanese palate, the place was already popular among high school students.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">These days, as a San Francisco resident, I am sometimes asked about where to best enjoy Chinese food in the city, and my answer is usually a verbal shrug. Whereas San Francisco’s famous Chinatown is historically working-class Cantonese, most Taiwanese immigrants to the Bay Area ended up in places like Cupertino, Milpitas, Foster City and Fremont, which is why so many of the region’s Taiwanese restaurants opened there. After I moved to San Francisco, my consumption of Chinese food dropped dramatically—to say nothing of Taiwanese food, which became nonexistent. Approximately a decade had passed since I’d lived in the South Bay, and I didn’t know where to find the dishes that I had grown up eating; visiting Cupertino was no longer a regular part of my schedule. In San Francisco, I was even confused about where to find the Taiwanese grocery brands with which I was so familiar, and relied on my brother and his wife for deliveries of Bull Head barbecue sauce and pink net–wrapped packages of made-in-Taiwan rice noodles.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Near the beginning of the pandemic, a friend sent me a link to \u003ca href=\"https://liangsvillage.com/pages/menu#\">Liang’s Village\u003c/a>, a Cupertino-based Taiwanese restaurant that had newly begun advertising Bay Area-wide delivery ever since it halted dine-in service during lockdown. I was delighted to find that their menu offered so many familiar dishes: preserved egg and tofu with pork sung and scallions, fried pork chop rice, beef and tendon noodle soup, and black bean with pork and bean curd noodles. These were dishes that my mother had made at home, or that I’d eaten during those weekend excursions to Cupertino.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897688\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2397px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897688\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LiangsTofu_EsmeWW.jpg\" alt=\"Against a white background, a bowl of braised tofu topped with chili sauce; a spoon cuts into the tender tofu.\" width=\"2397\" height=\"1595\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LiangsTofu_EsmeWW.jpg 2397w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LiangsTofu_EsmeWW-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LiangsTofu_EsmeWW-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LiangsTofu_EsmeWW-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LiangsTofu_EsmeWW-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LiangsTofu_EsmeWW-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LiangsTofu_EsmeWW-2048x1363.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LiangsTofu_EsmeWW-1920x1278.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2397px) 100vw, 2397px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The stewed tofu with oyster sauce from Liang’s Village provided comfort during the pandemic. \u003ccite>(Esmé Weijun Wang)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Over time, I began to order from Liang’s Village on a regular basis, rediscovering my favorites easily as the restaurant dropped large boxes of food on my doorstep. I’ve ordered four or five servings of the stewed tofu with oyster sauce at a time, enjoying the silken tofu wrapped in a wrinkled bean curd skin anytime I felt like it. When the package of Pingtung cold noodles arrived at my door—called “Cold Peanut Noodle” on the Liang’s Village menu—I dumped the entire mixture of slippery noodles, peanut-sesame sauce and julienned cucumbers into a bowl, which I gleefully enjoyed in bed. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pingtung, a city located in Southern Taiwan, is where the proprietors of Liang’s Village are from. As it happens, it’s also where my mother is from; I was supposed to visit family in the Pingtung countryside in 2020 before COVID derailed those plans. Eating Pingtung-style chilled noodles in peanut sauce was one way of nearing that experience. The Liang’s noodles were almost identical to the ones my mother made when I was growing up, minus the shredded chicken breast that she added along with the slender toothpicks of cucumber. It was a dish to be enjoyed in the summer, when the temperatures sometimes reached the triple digits and we couldn’t fathom eating a hot dish. My mother would summon us with the Taiwanese call, jia bng o’ (“come to eat”). We’d gather around the dining table, waiting for my father to dine first before we all slurped and sighed with gratitude.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Another dish that brought a flood of memories was the stewed duck wings, which Liang’s delivered frozen. My father used to bring home warm baggies of these wings from the hot dish section of Marina Foods throughout my adolescence, stashing them in the fridge for late-night snacking. It was known within the family that the wings belonged primarily to him and me, because my mother and brother didn’t enjoy them. Now, years later, living in San Francisco, I placed the frozen, vacuum-sealed packet from Liang’s Village inside our fridge. Once defrosted, the duck wings had a chewy, occasionally gelatinous texture. Without my father to share them with me, I enjoyed the wings slowly, over a period of several days, though I missed the communal joy that he and I had shared. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of my favorite things from Liang’s is a fresh-squeezed, bottled beverage called \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/B_dtcrOF_f9/\">Honey Grape Fruit Squeeze\u003c/a>. Like many fresh-squeezed juices in Taiwan, this one is cut with tea, and arrives with gorgeous jewels of pulp and chunks of peeled grapefruit that can be forked through the opening. It’s a pleasure that I enjoy by itself like a dessert—a final delight to follow the assortment of familiar dishes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It feels strange that it took a catastrophic, international pandemic—and a restaurant’s need to pivot its business during lockdown—to bring Taiwanese food back into my life. But I’ve been grateful for these familiar comforts. Being able to take solace in a spicy bowl of wrinkly bean curd has brought me closer not only to my family, but also to a culinary lineage of my ancestors.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My parents moved back to Taiwan approximately a decade ago. Only recently did I talk with my mother on the LINE app about visiting near the end of the year. I’ve reached the fabled two-week point after my second dose of the Moderna vaccine; I’ve been able to dream of getting on that thirteen-hour flight again. Meanwhile, however, I have a frozen package of duck wings in the fridge, waiting for me to snip it open and enjoy.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897264\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"127\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish-160x25.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish-768x122.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Searching for Lu Rou Fan",
"headTitle": "Searching for Lu Rou Fan | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-13897507 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan01.jpg\" alt=\"Comic panel of a bowl of braised pork over rice; the title reads "Searching for Lu Rou Fan."\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1590\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan01.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan01-800x663.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan01-1020x845.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan01-160x133.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan01-768x636.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan01-1536x1272.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" />\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897509\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan02.jpg\" alt=\"A subway train is traveling above ground in the rain. The narration reads, "One of my most memorable meals in the past few years was a bowl of lu rou fan; Taipei, Taiwan 2018." 1st speech bubble: "You sure this is a good idea, bro?" 2nd speech bubble: "Yeah! Don't worry..."\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1590\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan02.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan02-800x663.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan02-1020x845.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan02-160x133.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan02-768x636.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan02-1536x1272.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" />\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897512\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan03.jpg\" alt=\"The two protagonists are seated in a train car; one of them checks his watch. 1st speech bubble: "I mean we have a 3 hour layover here in Taipei. That gives us like..." 2nd speech bubble: "...what, an hour?"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1590\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan03.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan03-800x663.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan03-1020x845.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan03-160x133.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan03-768x636.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan03-1536x1272.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" />\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897515\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan04.jpg\" alt=\"The blue-and-green facade of a small restaurant that opens out onto the street; rain is coming down. 1st speech bubble: "There it is! Jin Feng." 2nd speech bubble: "This cramped little place?" 3rd speech bubble: "This tiny restaurant has been selling the same dish, lu rou fan, for over 30 years!"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1590\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan04.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan04-800x663.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan04-1020x845.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan04-160x133.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan04-768x636.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan04-1536x1272.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" />\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897516\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan05.jpg\" alt=\"The two protagonists stand in front of the counter while a woman scoops meat over a bowl of rice. 1st speech bubble: "Lu rou fan is peasant food, chunks of hand-cut pork belly braised in soy sauce and aromatics, then ladled over rice." 2nd speech bubble: "All that for two dollars?!?"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1590\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan05.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan05-800x663.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan05-1020x845.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan05-160x133.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan05-768x636.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan05-1536x1272.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" />\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897517\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan06.jpg\" alt=\"The two protagonists, both bespectacled men, sit at a table devouring their lu rou fan, chopsticks in hand. Speech bubble: "I can't believe I've never had this. It's amazing! The pork is so tender! Mmm"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1590\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan06.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan06-800x663.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan06-1020x845.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan06-160x133.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan06-768x636.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan06-1536x1272.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" />\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897520\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan07.jpg\" alt=\"The two protagonists have finished their meal; one holds his stomach, stuffed. Speech bubble #1: "Lu rou fan is just something the Taiwanese side of my family grew up with." Speech bubble #2: "So good..." Speech bubble #3: "This reminds me of a story my uncle used to tell:"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1590\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan07.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan07-800x663.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan07-1020x845.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan07-160x133.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan07-768x636.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan07-1536x1272.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" />\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897521\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan08.jpg\" alt=\"The scene shifts to a flashback; a Taiwanese family sits around the dinner table, including an older gentleman in a white tank top. Speech bubble #1: "You know when we were younger our family didn't always have enough money to buy meat." Speech bubble #2: "This story again?" Speech bubble #3: "So we would go to the lu rou fan stall and ask:"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1590\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan08.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan08-800x663.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan08-1020x845.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan08-160x133.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan08-768x636.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan08-1536x1272.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" />\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897523\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan09.jpg\" alt=\"Scene shifts to an even earlier time. A young boy and girl stand in front of a food stall with their arms outstretched while the owner ladles meat onto a bowl of rice. Speech bubble 1: "This is all we have. Can you just scoop us some fat over rice?" Speech bubble #2: "PLEEEAASE???" \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1590\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan09.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan09-800x663.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan09-1020x845.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan09-160x133.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan09-768x636.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan09-1536x1272.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" />\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897524\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan10.jpg\" alt=\"The scene shifts back to the old uncle telling his story, holding his chopsticks over a bowl of rice. Speech bubble #1: "That bowl of lu rou fan with no meat, just the fat..." Speech bubble #2: "...would be the best thing we ate all week!"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1590\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan10.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan10-800x663.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan10-1020x845.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan10-160x133.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan10-768x636.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan10-1536x1272.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" />\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897528\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan11.jpg\" alt=\"Three side-by-side panels show Luke tasting different versions of lu rou fan with an irritated expression on his face. The narration reads: "Here in the Bay Area I've spent years searching for a decent bowl of lu rou fan." Speech bubble #1: "So dry!" Speech bubble #2: "Why would they use ground pork?!?" Speech bubble #3: "Why is this one so sweet?!!"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1590\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan11.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan11-800x663.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan11-1020x845.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan11-160x133.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan11-768x636.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan11-1536x1272.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" />\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897544\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan12-1.jpg\" alt=\"A yellow food truck with the name "Mama Liu Taiwanese Street Food" painted in red above its awning. The narration reads: "But nothing really scratched that itch until a recent trip to Milpitas." \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1590\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan12-1.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan12-1-800x663.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan12-1-1020x845.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan12-1-160x133.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan12-1-768x636.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan12-1-1536x1272.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" />\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897530\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan13.jpg\" alt=\"View from inside the truck, as an older woman passes food to Luke, who is waiting outside. Overhead narration: "Where Mama Liu was selling lu rou fan, stinky tofu, and other Taiwanese street foods." Speech bubble: "Just heat it up at home!"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1590\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan13.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan13-800x663.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan13-1020x845.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan13-160x133.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan13-768x636.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan13-1536x1272.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" />\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897531\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan14.jpg\" alt=\"Scene shifts to the front of a house on a rainy day; Luke stands in the window while Thien rushes over with his hand shielding his head. Speech bubble #1: "Sorry bro, we have to eat outside!" Speech bubble #2: "But I'm vaccinated! And it's raining!" \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1590\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan14.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan14-800x663.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan14-1020x845.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan14-160x133.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan14-768x636.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan14-1536x1272.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" />\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897532\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan15.jpg\" alt=\"The two protagonists are sitting on the porch eating. The narration reads: "This was the old style lu rou fan we'd been craving." Speech bubble #1: "I love this hand-cut pork belly..." Speech bubble #2: "The sauce is just right!" Speech bubble #3: "And that egg!"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1590\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan15.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan15-800x663.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan15-1020x845.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan15-160x133.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan15-768x636.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan15-1536x1272.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" />\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897533\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan16.jpg\" alt=\"A zoomed out view of the two friends sitting on the porch. The narration reads: "And just like that it was like we were back in Taiwan again, swapping stories, eating our nostalgia." Speech bubble: "You know this dish reminds me of the time..."\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1590\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan16.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan16-800x663.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan16-1020x845.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan16-160x133.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan16-768x636.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan16-1536x1272.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" />\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">KQED’s \u003c/i>\u003c/em>Eating Taiwanese in the Bay\u003cem>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\"> is a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/eatingtaiwanese\">series of stories\u003c/a> exploring Taiwanese food culture in all of its glorious, delicious complexity.\u003c/i>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897264\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"127\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish-160x25.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish-768x122.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" />\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Thien Pham is a graphic novelist and high school teacher in Oakland. His food-based memoir about his family’s immigration story will be out in 2023 from First Second Books.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Luke Tsai is KQED’s food editor.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "A comic about friendship, nostalgia and the search for the perfect Taiwanese braised pork belly rice.",
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"socialTitle": "Comic: Searching for Lu Rou Fan in the Bay Area %%page%% %%sep%% KQED",
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"description": "A comic about friendship, food nostalgia and the search for the perfect bowl of Taiwanese braised pork belly rice.",
"socialDescription": "A comic about friendship, food nostalgia and the search for the perfect bowl of Taiwanese braised pork belly rice.",
"title": "Comic: Searching for Lu Rou Fan in the Bay Area | KQED",
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"headline": "Searching for Lu Rou Fan",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-13897507 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan01.jpg\" alt=\"Comic panel of a bowl of braised pork over rice; the title reads "Searching for Lu Rou Fan."\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1590\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan01.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan01-800x663.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan01-1020x845.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan01-160x133.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan01-768x636.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan01-1536x1272.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" />\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897509\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan02.jpg\" alt=\"A subway train is traveling above ground in the rain. The narration reads, "One of my most memorable meals in the past few years was a bowl of lu rou fan; Taipei, Taiwan 2018." 1st speech bubble: "You sure this is a good idea, bro?" 2nd speech bubble: "Yeah! Don't worry..."\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1590\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan02.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan02-800x663.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan02-1020x845.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan02-160x133.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan02-768x636.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan02-1536x1272.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" />\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897512\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan03.jpg\" alt=\"The two protagonists are seated in a train car; one of them checks his watch. 1st speech bubble: "I mean we have a 3 hour layover here in Taipei. That gives us like..." 2nd speech bubble: "...what, an hour?"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1590\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan03.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan03-800x663.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan03-1020x845.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan03-160x133.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan03-768x636.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan03-1536x1272.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" />\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897515\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan04.jpg\" alt=\"The blue-and-green facade of a small restaurant that opens out onto the street; rain is coming down. 1st speech bubble: "There it is! Jin Feng." 2nd speech bubble: "This cramped little place?" 3rd speech bubble: "This tiny restaurant has been selling the same dish, lu rou fan, for over 30 years!"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1590\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan04.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan04-800x663.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan04-1020x845.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan04-160x133.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan04-768x636.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan04-1536x1272.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" />\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897516\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan05.jpg\" alt=\"The two protagonists stand in front of the counter while a woman scoops meat over a bowl of rice. 1st speech bubble: "Lu rou fan is peasant food, chunks of hand-cut pork belly braised in soy sauce and aromatics, then ladled over rice." 2nd speech bubble: "All that for two dollars?!?"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1590\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan05.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan05-800x663.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan05-1020x845.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan05-160x133.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan05-768x636.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan05-1536x1272.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" />\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897517\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan06.jpg\" alt=\"The two protagonists, both bespectacled men, sit at a table devouring their lu rou fan, chopsticks in hand. Speech bubble: "I can't believe I've never had this. It's amazing! The pork is so tender! Mmm"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1590\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan06.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan06-800x663.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan06-1020x845.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan06-160x133.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan06-768x636.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan06-1536x1272.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" />\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897520\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan07.jpg\" alt=\"The two protagonists have finished their meal; one holds his stomach, stuffed. Speech bubble #1: "Lu rou fan is just something the Taiwanese side of my family grew up with." Speech bubble #2: "So good..." Speech bubble #3: "This reminds me of a story my uncle used to tell:"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1590\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan07.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan07-800x663.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan07-1020x845.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan07-160x133.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan07-768x636.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan07-1536x1272.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" />\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897521\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan08.jpg\" alt=\"The scene shifts to a flashback; a Taiwanese family sits around the dinner table, including an older gentleman in a white tank top. Speech bubble #1: "You know when we were younger our family didn't always have enough money to buy meat." Speech bubble #2: "This story again?" Speech bubble #3: "So we would go to the lu rou fan stall and ask:"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1590\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan08.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan08-800x663.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan08-1020x845.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan08-160x133.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan08-768x636.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan08-1536x1272.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" />\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897523\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan09.jpg\" alt=\"Scene shifts to an even earlier time. A young boy and girl stand in front of a food stall with their arms outstretched while the owner ladles meat onto a bowl of rice. Speech bubble 1: "This is all we have. Can you just scoop us some fat over rice?" Speech bubble #2: "PLEEEAASE???" \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1590\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan09.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan09-800x663.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan09-1020x845.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan09-160x133.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan09-768x636.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan09-1536x1272.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" />\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897524\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan10.jpg\" alt=\"The scene shifts back to the old uncle telling his story, holding his chopsticks over a bowl of rice. Speech bubble #1: "That bowl of lu rou fan with no meat, just the fat..." Speech bubble #2: "...would be the best thing we ate all week!"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1590\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan10.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan10-800x663.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan10-1020x845.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan10-160x133.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan10-768x636.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan10-1536x1272.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" />\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897528\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan11.jpg\" alt=\"Three side-by-side panels show Luke tasting different versions of lu rou fan with an irritated expression on his face. The narration reads: "Here in the Bay Area I've spent years searching for a decent bowl of lu rou fan." Speech bubble #1: "So dry!" Speech bubble #2: "Why would they use ground pork?!?" Speech bubble #3: "Why is this one so sweet?!!"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1590\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan11.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan11-800x663.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan11-1020x845.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan11-160x133.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan11-768x636.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan11-1536x1272.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" />\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897544\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan12-1.jpg\" alt=\"A yellow food truck with the name "Mama Liu Taiwanese Street Food" painted in red above its awning. The narration reads: "But nothing really scratched that itch until a recent trip to Milpitas." \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1590\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan12-1.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan12-1-800x663.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan12-1-1020x845.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan12-1-160x133.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan12-1-768x636.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan12-1-1536x1272.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" />\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897530\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan13.jpg\" alt=\"View from inside the truck, as an older woman passes food to Luke, who is waiting outside. Overhead narration: "Where Mama Liu was selling lu rou fan, stinky tofu, and other Taiwanese street foods." Speech bubble: "Just heat it up at home!"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1590\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan13.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan13-800x663.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan13-1020x845.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan13-160x133.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan13-768x636.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan13-1536x1272.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" />\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897531\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan14.jpg\" alt=\"Scene shifts to the front of a house on a rainy day; Luke stands in the window while Thien rushes over with his hand shielding his head. Speech bubble #1: "Sorry bro, we have to eat outside!" Speech bubble #2: "But I'm vaccinated! And it's raining!" \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1590\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan14.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan14-800x663.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan14-1020x845.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan14-160x133.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan14-768x636.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan14-1536x1272.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" />\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897532\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan15.jpg\" alt=\"The two protagonists are sitting on the porch eating. The narration reads: "This was the old style lu rou fan we'd been craving." Speech bubble #1: "I love this hand-cut pork belly..." Speech bubble #2: "The sauce is just right!" Speech bubble #3: "And that egg!"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1590\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan15.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan15-800x663.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan15-1020x845.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan15-160x133.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan15-768x636.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan15-1536x1272.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" />\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897533\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan16.jpg\" alt=\"A zoomed out view of the two friends sitting on the porch. The narration reads: "And just like that it was like we were back in Taiwan again, swapping stories, eating our nostalgia." Speech bubble: "You know this dish reminds me of the time..."\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1590\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan16.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan16-800x663.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan16-1020x845.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan16-160x133.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan16-768x636.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/LuRouFan16-1536x1272.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" />\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">KQED’s \u003c/i>\u003c/em>Eating Taiwanese in the Bay\u003cem>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\"> is a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/eatingtaiwanese\">series of stories\u003c/a> exploring Taiwanese food culture in all of its glorious, delicious complexity.\u003c/i>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897264\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"127\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish-160x25.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish-768x122.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" />\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Thien Pham is a graphic novelist and high school teacher in Oakland. His food-based memoir about his family’s immigration story will be out in 2023 from First Second Books.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Luke Tsai is KQED’s food editor.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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1621526401000
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"slug": "taiwanese-food-texture-q-boba-love-boat",
"title": "An Ode to Q",
"publishDate": 1621526401,
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"headTitle": "An Ode to Q | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897434\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897434\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/QQ_InArticle.jpg\" alt=\"A collage of Taiwanese foods (ba-wan, beef noodle soup, and boba milk tea) on a blue background.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1277\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/QQ_InArticle.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/QQ_InArticle-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/QQ_InArticle-1020x678.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/QQ_InArticle-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/QQ_InArticle-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/QQ_InArticle-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u003cem>(Photos by ugurv/insjoy/bonchan/iStock; design by Rebecca Kao)\u003c/em>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">KQED’s \u003c/i>\u003c/em>Eating Taiwanese in the Bay\u003cem>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\"> is a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/eatingtaiwanese\">series of stories\u003c/a> exploring Taiwanese food culture in all of its glorious, delicious complexity.\u003c/i>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n 1994, after I returned from a study abroad program in Taiwan, the very first question my father asked wasn’t about the flight or what I’d learned in my language and culture classes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Did you meet any boys?” he asked, his expression hopeful.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I couldn’t blame him for asking. The six-week program—subsidized by the island government to increase awareness and support for Taiwan—was unofficially known as the “Love Boat.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">None of the hundreds of college students that summer—hailing from the United States, Canada and elsewhere in the Chinese diaspora—boarded a luxury ocean liner like the one from the television rom-com. Instead, the nickname referred to the relationships that blossomed in the steamy subtropical heat.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sneaking out past curfew with my newfound friends, we’d get late night snacks from the endless stalls at the Shilin Night Market, the country’s largest and most famed street food destination. Fish balls bobbing in steaming cauldrons of hot pot; tendons in big bowls of beef noodle soup; and grass jelly drinks, jiggly cubes that you chewed \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">while\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> you sipped.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[aside tag='eating-taiwanese' label='Eating Taiwanese']As the Communists came to power in 1949, my parents—then children—had fled with their families to the island. Later they would attend graduate school in the United States, where they would marry and settle down.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As much as my parents embraced the opportunities here, they hoped their children might retain a connection to what they’d left behind. The study tour, which began in 1967 and had its heyday during the 1990s, deployed potent political soft power, vital because Taiwan’s government\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">—\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">known officially as the Republic of China\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">—\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">lacked diplomatic recognition by most countries.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That summer, I learned why: During the Cold War, the United States favored the regime in Taiwan and didn’t formally recognize Beijing’s. When diplomatic relations opened with the Communists in 1979, the U.S severed ties with Taiwan, which China still views as one of its provinces.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Over the decades, tens of thousands of students have participated in the study tour, including celebrity chef Eddie Huang, who writes about it in his memoir, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fresh Off the Boat. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Although I didn’t find romance, I left with lifelong friends and a lifelong love for the cuisine I encountered on my trip—especially the springy, bouncy yet gooey texture known as Q. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[pullquote size='large']“It’s food that fights back, that takes the energy of your bite and returns it to you.”[/pullquote]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The term Q is derived from the word k’iu in the Taiwanese Hokkien dialect for something wavy, curvy and bendy—say, in the shape of grilled squid. Q foods, both savory and sweet, often involve glutinous rice flour, yam flour, potato or corn starches. The texture has been compared to al dente pasta, gummy bears and marshmallows in Western cuisine, but to my mind, Q is even more liminal, with a this-and-that, here-and-there quality. Items exemplifying this texture are known as QQ—that is, very Q.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">According to \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A Culinary History of Taipei: Beyond Pork and Ponlai\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> by Steven Crook and Katy Hui-Wen Hung, Q foods are “more substantial than melt-in-the mouth and [have] a delectable chewiness without being gummy.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s food that fights back, that takes the energy of your bite and returns it to you. Q is nothing like the smooth, processed American foods that go down easy, eaten mindlessly: soft serve ice cream, huge cups of soda to guzzle at red lights or boneless Buffalo wings. With Q, you pay more attention—not only to prevent choking but because your delight in it makes you more mindful.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On humid nights in Taipei, steamy as the inside of a teakettle, I chomped into chewy balls of glutinous rice flour rolled in powdered peanuts and relished deep-fried fish balls on a stick. Just thinking about Q makes me crave it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">During my summer in Taiwan, boba tea drinks—with the addictive Q of their tapioca pearls—hadn’t yet widely caught on, but would soon skyrocket in popularity before sweeping onto other shores, first in Asian enclaves and later in suburbia. Boba teas are now so popular that recent rumors of shortages due to shipping issues from Asia have led to collective bemoaning among fans. Those craving Q should consider its myriad forms available in the Bay Area.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Stir fried rice cakes with mustard greens and slivers of pork at China Bee \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">in\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> San Mateo have been a favorite at our Love Boat reunions.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even though we’ve known each other more than half our lives, each time we meet it’s like no time has passed at all.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ba-wan is another beloved treat, a gigantic mochi meatball that is \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">a traditional southern Taiwanese snack: a fistful of pork, bamboo shoots and mushrooms, surrounded by a chewy, gelatinous wrapper—often made with rice or tapioca flour, potato and corn starches—and doused in a tangy sauce made with ketchup, rice vinegar and soy sauce. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/Cafe-Taiwan-%E6%9E%97%E5%AE%B6%E8%90%AC%E5%B7%92%E8%B1%AC%E8%85%B3-Pleasanton-685514224889526/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Café Taiwan\u003c/span>\u003c/a> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">in\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Pleasanton offers a glistening version for takeout. While you’re there, also get the Hakka dumpling soup, which has the look of the Frog Lady’s eggs from \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Mandalorian\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">; Grogu surely would approve of its ooey, chewy goo.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/groups/taiwancafemilpitas\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taiwan Café\u003c/span>\u003c/a> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">in \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Milpitas recently began shipping its frozen ba-wan, five spice rolls and wan luan pork hock (named for a rural eastern township known for its unctuous pork knuckles). You can also pick up these items and more on weekends via an ordering form through its \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/groups/taiwancafemilpitas\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Facebook group\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Beef noodle soup is now considered Taiwan’s national dish—tender shank, tendons with a delicate Q texture, and broth punched up with ginger, star anise and red chilis. It arrived in the aftermath of WWII, the creation of former soldiers who became food vendors in a time marked by turmoil. Locals chafed against the Nationalist government, which violently cracked down on and imprisoned political dissidents. At the same time, in the military villages, an influx of newcomers from across the straits brought their taste for wheat-based noodles, soup dumplings and more.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Food was one of the first ways of bridging conflicting groups on the island,” notes Cathy Erway in her cookbook, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Food of Taiwan: Recipes from the Beautiful Island\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here in the Bay Area, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://liangsvillage.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Liang’s Village \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">in Cupertino makes a stellar beef noodle soup, with loads of tender yet springy tendon. \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://mumumeals.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mumu Meals\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">—founded last year by Bay Area brothers Jeffrey and Daniel Hsu—ships and delivers a frozen adaptation of their mother’s recipe. “We hope that someday, this dish is just as well known as Japanese ramen or Vietnamese pho,” Daniel Hsu says.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897471\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 828px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-13897471 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/tigersugar_vanessahua.jpg\" alt=\"A black sugar boba ice cream pop, streaked with caramel, against a leafy green backdrop.\" width=\"828\" height=\"830\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/tigersugar_vanessahua.jpg 828w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/tigersugar_vanessahua-800x802.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/tigersugar_vanessahua-160x160.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/tigersugar_vanessahua-768x770.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 828px) 100vw, 828px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Q to the max: a black sugar boba ice cream pop. \u003ccite>(Vanessa Hua)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To finish off a meal, I’m a fan of \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">black sugar boba milk ice cream bars, which went viral on Instagram and TikTok with their photogenic, psychedelic swirls. In late May of last year—the first time I’d ventured into a Ranch 99 since the lockdown began—I raced down the aisles, double-masked, frantically grabbing items as if I were in some kind of game show.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the freezer case, I picked up two boxes of Tiger Sugar bars—“brave as a tiger,” its motto proclaims—but had no inkling of their popularity until I got to the checkout and realized the woman in front of me was buying five. (The treat is also available at \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.toasttab.com/tigersugarcupertino/v3/?mode=fulfillment\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Tiger Sugar\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, an outpost of the Taiwanese boba shop which opened last October \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">in Cupertino.) \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The bar itself was creamy, with the taste of whole milk, and not too sweet despite ribbons of caramel-y brown sugar, and the black boba tender—the epitome of Q—and not the frozen marbles that I feared. It was pure indulgence on a stick. As soon as I finished it, I wanted another; I wished I’d bought more boxes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">t that early stage of the pandemic, when our choices\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">—\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">and our reality\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">—\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">felt so constrained, certain fads spread across social media: sourdough bread, chickpea stew, and whatever else floated across our feed.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some foods we tried once, but never ate again. Now as we haltingly emerge on the other side of it, my pulse still quickens for Q.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897264\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"127\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish-160x25.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish-768x122.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Vanessa Hua is a columnist for the \u003c/span>\u003c/em>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/span>\u003cem>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and the author of \u003c/span>\u003c/em>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Deceit and Other Possibilities\u003c/span>\u003cem>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, \u003c/span>\u003c/em>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A River of Stars\u003c/span>\u003cem>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and the forthcoming novel \u003c/span>\u003c/em>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Forbidden City\u003c/span>\u003cem>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897434\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897434\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/QQ_InArticle.jpg\" alt=\"A collage of Taiwanese foods (ba-wan, beef noodle soup, and boba milk tea) on a blue background.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1277\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/QQ_InArticle.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/QQ_InArticle-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/QQ_InArticle-1020x678.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/QQ_InArticle-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/QQ_InArticle-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/QQ_InArticle-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u003cem>(Photos by ugurv/insjoy/bonchan/iStock; design by Rebecca Kao)\u003c/em>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">KQED’s \u003c/i>\u003c/em>Eating Taiwanese in the Bay\u003cem>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\"> is a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/eatingtaiwanese\">series of stories\u003c/a> exploring Taiwanese food culture in all of its glorious, delicious complexity.\u003c/i>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__dropcapShortcode__dropcap\">I\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>n 1994, after I returned from a study abroad program in Taiwan, the very first question my father asked wasn’t about the flight or what I’d learned in my language and culture classes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Did you meet any boys?” he asked, his expression hopeful.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I couldn’t blame him for asking. The six-week program—subsidized by the island government to increase awareness and support for Taiwan—was unofficially known as the “Love Boat.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">None of the hundreds of college students that summer—hailing from the United States, Canada and elsewhere in the Chinese diaspora—boarded a luxury ocean liner like the one from the television rom-com. Instead, the nickname referred to the relationships that blossomed in the steamy subtropical heat.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sneaking out past curfew with my newfound friends, we’d get late night snacks from the endless stalls at the Shilin Night Market, the country’s largest and most famed street food destination. Fish balls bobbing in steaming cauldrons of hot pot; tendons in big bowls of beef noodle soup; and grass jelly drinks, jiggly cubes that you chewed \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">while\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> you sipped.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>As the Communists came to power in 1949, my parents—then children—had fled with their families to the island. Later they would attend graduate school in the United States, where they would marry and settle down.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As much as my parents embraced the opportunities here, they hoped their children might retain a connection to what they’d left behind. The study tour, which began in 1967 and had its heyday during the 1990s, deployed potent political soft power, vital because Taiwan’s government\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">—\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">known officially as the Republic of China\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">—\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">lacked diplomatic recognition by most countries.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That summer, I learned why: During the Cold War, the United States favored the regime in Taiwan and didn’t formally recognize Beijing’s. When diplomatic relations opened with the Communists in 1979, the U.S severed ties with Taiwan, which China still views as one of its provinces.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Over the decades, tens of thousands of students have participated in the study tour, including celebrity chef Eddie Huang, who writes about it in his memoir, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fresh Off the Boat. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Although I didn’t find romance, I left with lifelong friends and a lifelong love for the cuisine I encountered on my trip—especially the springy, bouncy yet gooey texture known as Q. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "“It’s food that fights back, that takes the energy of your bite and returns it to you.”",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The term Q is derived from the word k’iu in the Taiwanese Hokkien dialect for something wavy, curvy and bendy—say, in the shape of grilled squid. Q foods, both savory and sweet, often involve glutinous rice flour, yam flour, potato or corn starches. The texture has been compared to al dente pasta, gummy bears and marshmallows in Western cuisine, but to my mind, Q is even more liminal, with a this-and-that, here-and-there quality. Items exemplifying this texture are known as QQ—that is, very Q.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">According to \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A Culinary History of Taipei: Beyond Pork and Ponlai\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> by Steven Crook and Katy Hui-Wen Hung, Q foods are “more substantial than melt-in-the mouth and [have] a delectable chewiness without being gummy.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s food that fights back, that takes the energy of your bite and returns it to you. Q is nothing like the smooth, processed American foods that go down easy, eaten mindlessly: soft serve ice cream, huge cups of soda to guzzle at red lights or boneless Buffalo wings. With Q, you pay more attention—not only to prevent choking but because your delight in it makes you more mindful.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On humid nights in Taipei, steamy as the inside of a teakettle, I chomped into chewy balls of glutinous rice flour rolled in powdered peanuts and relished deep-fried fish balls on a stick. Just thinking about Q makes me crave it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">During my summer in Taiwan, boba tea drinks—with the addictive Q of their tapioca pearls—hadn’t yet widely caught on, but would soon skyrocket in popularity before sweeping onto other shores, first in Asian enclaves and later in suburbia. Boba teas are now so popular that recent rumors of shortages due to shipping issues from Asia have led to collective bemoaning among fans. Those craving Q should consider its myriad forms available in the Bay Area.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Stir fried rice cakes with mustard greens and slivers of pork at China Bee \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">in\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> San Mateo have been a favorite at our Love Boat reunions.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even though we’ve known each other more than half our lives, each time we meet it’s like no time has passed at all.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ba-wan is another beloved treat, a gigantic mochi meatball that is \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">a traditional southern Taiwanese snack: a fistful of pork, bamboo shoots and mushrooms, surrounded by a chewy, gelatinous wrapper—often made with rice or tapioca flour, potato and corn starches—and doused in a tangy sauce made with ketchup, rice vinegar and soy sauce. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/Cafe-Taiwan-%E6%9E%97%E5%AE%B6%E8%90%AC%E5%B7%92%E8%B1%AC%E8%85%B3-Pleasanton-685514224889526/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Café Taiwan\u003c/span>\u003c/a> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">in\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Pleasanton offers a glistening version for takeout. While you’re there, also get the Hakka dumpling soup, which has the look of the Frog Lady’s eggs from \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Mandalorian\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">; Grogu surely would approve of its ooey, chewy goo.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/groups/taiwancafemilpitas\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taiwan Café\u003c/span>\u003c/a> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">in \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Milpitas recently began shipping its frozen ba-wan, five spice rolls and wan luan pork hock (named for a rural eastern township known for its unctuous pork knuckles). You can also pick up these items and more on weekends via an ordering form through its \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/groups/taiwancafemilpitas\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Facebook group\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Beef noodle soup is now considered Taiwan’s national dish—tender shank, tendons with a delicate Q texture, and broth punched up with ginger, star anise and red chilis. It arrived in the aftermath of WWII, the creation of former soldiers who became food vendors in a time marked by turmoil. Locals chafed against the Nationalist government, which violently cracked down on and imprisoned political dissidents. At the same time, in the military villages, an influx of newcomers from across the straits brought their taste for wheat-based noodles, soup dumplings and more.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Food was one of the first ways of bridging conflicting groups on the island,” notes Cathy Erway in her cookbook, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Food of Taiwan: Recipes from the Beautiful Island\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here in the Bay Area, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://liangsvillage.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Liang’s Village \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">in Cupertino makes a stellar beef noodle soup, with loads of tender yet springy tendon. \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://mumumeals.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mumu Meals\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">—founded last year by Bay Area brothers Jeffrey and Daniel Hsu—ships and delivers a frozen adaptation of their mother’s recipe. “We hope that someday, this dish is just as well known as Japanese ramen or Vietnamese pho,” Daniel Hsu says.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897471\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 828px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-13897471 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/tigersugar_vanessahua.jpg\" alt=\"A black sugar boba ice cream pop, streaked with caramel, against a leafy green backdrop.\" width=\"828\" height=\"830\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/tigersugar_vanessahua.jpg 828w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/tigersugar_vanessahua-800x802.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/tigersugar_vanessahua-160x160.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/tigersugar_vanessahua-768x770.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 828px) 100vw, 828px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Q to the max: a black sugar boba ice cream pop. \u003ccite>(Vanessa Hua)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To finish off a meal, I’m a fan of \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">black sugar boba milk ice cream bars, which went viral on Instagram and TikTok with their photogenic, psychedelic swirls. In late May of last year—the first time I’d ventured into a Ranch 99 since the lockdown began—I raced down the aisles, double-masked, frantically grabbing items as if I were in some kind of game show.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the freezer case, I picked up two boxes of Tiger Sugar bars—“brave as a tiger,” its motto proclaims—but had no inkling of their popularity until I got to the checkout and realized the woman in front of me was buying five. (The treat is also available at \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.toasttab.com/tigersugarcupertino/v3/?mode=fulfillment\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Tiger Sugar\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, an outpost of the Taiwanese boba shop which opened last October \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">in Cupertino.) \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The bar itself was creamy, with the taste of whole milk, and not too sweet despite ribbons of caramel-y brown sugar, and the black boba tender—the epitome of Q—and not the frozen marbles that I feared. It was pure indulgence on a stick. As soon as I finished it, I wanted another; I wished I’d bought more boxes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">t that early stage of the pandemic, when our choices\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">—\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">and our reality\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">—\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">felt so constrained, certain fads spread across social media: sourdough bread, chickpea stew, and whatever else floated across our feed.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some foods we tried once, but never ate again. Now as we haltingly emerge on the other side of it, my pulse still quickens for Q.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897264\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"127\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish-160x25.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish-768x122.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Vanessa Hua is a columnist for the \u003c/span>\u003c/em>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/span>\u003cem>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and the author of \u003c/span>\u003c/em>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Deceit and Other Possibilities\u003c/span>\u003cem>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, \u003c/span>\u003c/em>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A River of Stars\u003c/span>\u003cem>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and the forthcoming novel \u003c/span>\u003c/em>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Forbidden City\u003c/span>\u003cem>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "The Bay Area’s Taiwanese Food Scene Comes Into Its Own",
"headTitle": "The Bay Area’s Taiwanese Food Scene Comes Into Its Own | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897273\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897273\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/EatingTaiwanese_main.jpg\" alt=\"A crowded night market in Keelung, Taiwan, lined with brightly lit food stalls\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1277\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/EatingTaiwanese_main.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/EatingTaiwanese_main-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/EatingTaiwanese_main-1020x678.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/EatingTaiwanese_main-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/EatingTaiwanese_main-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/EatingTaiwanese_main-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u003cem>(Photo by stockinasia/iStock; design by Rebecca Kao)\u003c/em>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">KQED’s \u003c/i>\u003c/em>Eating Taiwanese in the Bay\u003cem>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\"> is a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/eatingtaiwanese\">series of stories\u003c/a> exploring Taiwanese food culture in all of its glorious, delicious complexity.\u003c/i>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[dropcap]F[/dropcap]or as long as I’ve lived in the Bay Area, I’ve spent more time searching for Taiwanese food than I have actually eating it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’ve driven 90 minutes in traffic to snag a so-so plate of stinky tofu. I’ve stood in line for four hours for takeout Taiwanese breakfast. And who knows how long I’ve spent scouring online discussion forums and Yelp listings for even the briefest mention of lu rou fan or beef noodle soup?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For many of the 30,000-plus Taiwanese Americans who live in the Bay Area, Taiwanese food is largely a cuisine of nostalgia. It’s a cuisine of memories from 10 or 20 years ago and 6,000 miles away. It’s the 24-hour shao bing and you tiao joint around the corner from my grandma’s apartment in Taipei, or the night market stall where my uncle first goaded me into trying stinky tofu, or the mango shaved ice that damn near saved my life on a sweltering mid-summer afternoon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What it \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">isn’t\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is a cuisine I get to experience much of in my day-to-day. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Notwithstanding a handful of suburban enclaves in places like Fremont and Cupertino, the Bay Area has never really been known as a stronghold for Taiwanese food. In wide swaths of the region, you’d be lucky to find even \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">one \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taiwanese restaurant—and even then, the food might be a pale approximation of the real deal. As Christopher Lam, a San Francisco native who co-runs the beef noodle soup pop-up \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/yilanfoods/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yilan Foods\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, puts it, “When was the last time you could walk around the corner and find Taiwanese food?”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There are signs, however, that things are changing. One of the pleasant surprises of the pandemic has been the many new Taiwanese-inspired pop-ups and Instagram-based food businesses cropping up all over the Bay, many of them to much acclaim. Yilan Foods got a full write-up in the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/article/New-Bay-Area-pop-up-is-delivering-on-a-Taiwanese-15883184.php\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">; during the (now-paused) weekly pop-up’s tenure on Piedmont Avenue, it routinely sold out of its beef noodle soup, aka niu rou mian, just hours—sometimes even minutes—after opening online pre-orders for the week. An East Bay pop-up called \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/home_flavory_eats/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Home Flavory Eats\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> offering Taiwanese pineapple cake, or feng li su, became \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://sf.eater.com/2021/2/9/22273464/home-flavory-eats-taiwanese-pineapple-cakes-lunar-new-year-washington-bakery\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">so popular\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> that it had a weeks’ long waiting list at various points this past winter. And last month, when Oakland’s \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://www.taiwanbento.us/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taiwan Bento\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> served up boxes of dan bing and fan tuan at the restaurant’s first ever \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://sf.eater.com/2021/2/19/22290174/taiwan-bento-dan-bing-scallion-egg-pancake-taiwanese-breakfast\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taiwanese breakfast\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> pop-up, the line of customers wound all the way around the block, all morning long.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897347\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1981px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897347\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/048_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021.jpg\" alt=\"Stacy Tang holds a steamed bun in the kitchen at her restaurant, Taiwan Bento.\" width=\"1981\" height=\"1321\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/048_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021.jpg 1981w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/048_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/048_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/048_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/048_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/048_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/048_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1981px) 100vw, 1981px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Stacy Tang (left) prepares some steamed bao at her Oakland restaurant, Taiwan Bento. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, the demand is clearly there. There are signs, in fact, that the Bay Area is on the cusp of a Taiwanese food “moment,” as a new generation of Taiwanese American cooks joins the established South Bay mom-and-pop scene. These restaurants and pop-ups have brought the cuisine of their homeland into the spotlight—and given a flicker of hope to the stinky tofu lovers and niu rou mian connoisseurs among us, who walk around in a state of perpetual longing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>One of the World’s Greatest Food Destinations\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Part of the problem is that in much of the United States, there still isn’t a tremendous amount of awareness about Taiwanese cuisine—or, for that matter, Taiwan itself—outside of the Taiwanese American community. The small island nation, located some 100 miles off the eastern coast of China, isn’t a member of the United Nations—and doesn’t, in fact, have official diplomatic relations with the vast majority of the countries in the world, including the United States. China, which regards Taiwan as a renegade province, is perpetually \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/4/14/is-there-really-a-risk-that-china-will-go-to-war-with-taiwan\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">threatening to invade the island\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Despite those thorny geopolitics, Taiwan has garnered a reputation as one the world’s greatest food destinations. But that doesn’t mean its most famous dishes have really entered the mainstream food vernacular. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Stacy Tang, who runs Taiwan Bento along with her husband Willy Wang, says that when she first opened her restaurant in Oakland in 2014, many customers hadn’t even heard of Taiwan; they were just as likely to ask if the restaurant was serving Thai food. “A couple of people every week would ask, ‘What is Taiwan?’ or ‘Does Taiwan have anything to do with Japan?’” Tang says. On the menu, they listed their gua bao as a “Taiwanese sandwich” for fear that people wouldn’t understand what it was. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As recently as three years ago, when Angie Lin and Tony Tung opened \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.goodtoeatdumplings.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Good to Eat Dumplings\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> as a permanent pop-up inside Original Pattern Brewing in Oakland’s Jack London district, the wife-and-wife duo didn’t think the cuisine had enough name recognition for them to even use the word “Taiwanese” in their branding—even though the potstickers and other dumplings they sell are distinctly Taiwanese in style. “If it’s Thai style or Vietnamese style, there’s some sort of stereotype or general public perception,” Lin says. “For us, if we mention ‘Taiwanese,’ there’s \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">no\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> general perception.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even restaurants that do explicitly self-identify as Taiwanese are often \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://projects.sfchronicle.com/guides/bay-area-chinese-cuisine/cuisines/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">miscategorized, in local food coverage, as “regional Chinese”\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">—a politically fraught assertion that could be grounds for a fistfight if you make it in the wrong company. Though calling it a miscategorization might also be a bit too simplistic: As Lin explains, Taiwanese cuisine is a hodgepodge of influences that include the food of Taiwan’s aboriginal peoples, 50 years of Japanese occupation, dishes from many different regions of China (a result of the influx of transplants after the Chinese Civil War ended in 1949), hybridized dishes like beef noodle soup that were created by the defeated Nationalist soldiers who had fled to Taiwan, and the island’s ever-evolving street food culture.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ultimately, it’s all of those influences, combined with the island’s incredible wealth of fresh produce, that give Taiwanese cuisine its own uniquely delicious character—with flavors that lean heavily on sesame oil, black bean paste and Taiwanese soy sauce, Lin explains. These are the tastes that so many Taiwanese Americans in the Bay Area have been missing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Fueled by Nostalgia\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What do you do, then, if you’re a second-generation Taiwanese American kid in Oakland or San Francisco who has acquired a taste for beef noodle soup, but can’t find a bowl here that measures up to the ones you slurped down on Yongkang Street in Taipei? Maybe you try to reverse-engineer your own version.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That impulse, as much as anything, has driven the Bay Area’s new wave of Taiwanese food entrepreneurs. Fueled by nostalgia (and perhaps a little bit of desperation), these young Taiwanese American cooks are determined to replicate—and then elaborate on—the tastes and textures of whatever elusive dish first captured their imagination.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“You have this memory set in your head,” says Eric Sim, who founded Yilan Foods along with Christopher Lam, Alex Tong and Itthisak “TT” Rampaiyakul. Searching for Taiwanese food in the Bay Area, Sim says, “it always felt like it was lacking something.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sim still thinks about the beef noodle soup stall outside his aunt’s apartment from a trip he took to visit his mother’s native Yilan, just southeast of Taipei, more than a decade ago. “I vividly remember which stall number it is on the street, and I can tell you that there’s a stinky tofu shop a block and a half away that serves potstickers that are amazing,” he says. “My fondest memories of Taiwan are food-related.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897357\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1125px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897357\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/YilanFoods_luroufan.jpg\" alt=\"A bowl of lu rou fan, or braised pork rice, garnished with cilantro and yellow daikon pickles.\" width=\"1125\" height=\"1115\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/YilanFoods_luroufan.jpg 1125w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/YilanFoods_luroufan-800x793.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/YilanFoods_luroufan-1020x1011.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/YilanFoods_luroufan-160x159.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/YilanFoods_luroufan-768x761.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1125px) 100vw, 1125px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Yilan Foods pop-up’s signature lu rou fan. \u003ccite>(Yilan Foods)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As the only person of Taiwanese descent on the Yilan Foods team, Sim says the business was inspired by his family’s recipes: a beef noodle soup that’s meant to make customers think, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This brings me back to Taiwan\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, and a version of lu rou fan, or braised pork rice, that’s made with hand-cut pork belly, just as all the best spots in Taiwan do. By all accounts, the pop-up has been wildly successful—enough so that its founders are in the process of securing a location for a full-fledged restaurant, most likely in San Francisco.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Other efforts have been more localized in scale. Ashley Yan, who started an informal lu rou fan delivery service called \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://asyan77.wixsite.com/ashyansfood\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ashyan’s Lu Rou Fan\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in San Francisco’s Richmond district this past winter, says her frustration with the local Taiwanese food scene, especially in SF proper, was the biggest motivation to perfect her own recipe—though getting laid off from her day job due to the pandemic also played a part: “I think it was a perfect storm,” she says. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Initially, Yan just gave away portions of her lu rou fan for free via her neighborhood’s “Buy Nothing” Facebook group. But the response was so overwhelmingly positive, Yan says, that she started taking orders and running deliveries all over the western part of the city. Each time, she’d sell out within a couple of hours. Yan has since stopped the pop-up for the time being, but her experience convinced her that the demand for Taiwanese food is as high as it has ever been: “I definitely think the Bay Area is ready for it.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Meanwhile, Daniel and Jeffrey Hsu say their ambitions aren’t limited to the Bay Area. In August, the brothers founded \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://mumumeals.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mumu\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a San Francisco-based frozen beef noodle soup delivery service that currently ships all over the West Coast. But the company’s long-term goal is to ship to anywhere in the U.S. As Jeffrey puts it, “I want to bring Taiwanese food to the national scene.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Part of the appeal of Mumu’s heat-and-eat niu rou mian is that it provides convenient access to a dish that so many Taiwanese Americans are homesick for. In parts of the country without a sizable Taiwanese population, it has the potential to be the best option available. But a broader sign of the company’s success is that it’s now reaching an audience that isn’t just Taiwanese—or even necessarily Asian, Jeffrey notes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That shift, perhaps as much as anything, shows the change in how Taiwanese food is now perceived—from something of a niche product, sold by immigrant chefs within their own communities, to a cuisine with recognizable mainstream appeal. In places like Los Angeles and New York, the nascent movement has already reached an even more advanced stage—to the point that many of the cities’ \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.pineandcrane.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">trendiest\u003c/span>\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.eater.com/22412142/eric-sze-video-new-guard\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">name chef\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> restaurants are Taiwanese. Los Angeles now even has a \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.katorestaurant.com/menu\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taiwanese-inspired fine dining\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> spot.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The Taiwanese Food Moment\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">is\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Taiwanese food having a bit of a moment here in the Bay Area? To an extent, the question itself feels slightly disrespectful, as though the cuisine were in need of outside validation—to say nothing of the many, many mom-and-pop Taiwanese restaurants that have been holding it down for years in the South Bay. But, for both the old standbys and the newcomers to the scene, there is a sense that more people are getting excited about Taiwanese food than ever before.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of those mainstays is the South Bay food truck \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/Mama-Liu-Taiwanese-Street-Food-424857264260232/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mama Liu\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, which George Fan has run since 2014 along with his mother, Mimi Liu. During the pandemic, the truck has sold its menu of traditional Taiwanese street food dishes, including what many consider to be one of the best versions of stinky tofu available in the Bay, just once a week, almost exclusively to Taiwanese customers. Its pre-order form, accessible via \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/Mama-Liu-Taiwanese-Street-Food-424857264260232/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">the truck’s Facebook page\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, isn’t even available in English.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For businesses like Mama Liu, there’s no question that Taiwanese immigrants are the primary customer base. But these days, Fan says that he, too, is hopeful that customers of all different ethnicities might start to embrace his food. Lately, he says, he’s been asking himself, “How come Taiwanese beef noodle is not as popular as pho?” Maybe 2021 will be the year that becomes a legitimate debate.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897361\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2048px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897361\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Mumu_GraceLee-1.jpg\" alt=\"Overhead view of a bowl of beef noodle soup, garnished with bok choy and chopped scallions, on a wood table.\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Mumu_GraceLee-1.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Mumu_GraceLee-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Mumu_GraceLee-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Mumu_GraceLee-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Mumu_GraceLee-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Mumu_GraceLee-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Mumu_GraceLee-1-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mumu’s frozen beef noodle soup may soon be available to ship anywhere in the U.S. \u003ccite>(Grace Lee)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What I know is this: All of my earliest and most consequential food memories are from the trips my family took to Taipei when I was a kid. I remember the giddy feeling of walking around the Shilin night market for the first time with a fried chicken cutlet the size of a child’s baseball mitt. I remember the specific brand of instant noodle we used to buy at the convenience store. And I remember sitting at the table with my grandmother, long after everyone else had finished eating, bonding with her over our shared dedication to picking every last morsel of meat off a steamed fish head.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ever since the start of the pandemic—or, really, since the last time I visited—I’ve been thinking about when I’d be able to board a plane to get back to Taiwan. But now, for maybe the first time, I’m also thinking about where I might eat Taiwanese food this weekend, here in the Bay Area—and wondering which dish will make me feel like I’ve gone home again.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13897264\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"127\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish-160x25.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Taiwan.logobreak.greyish-768x122.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Fueled by nostalgia, a new generation of Taiwanese restaurants and pop-ups are shining a spotlight on the once-overlooked cuisine.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897273\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897273\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/EatingTaiwanese_main.jpg\" alt=\"A crowded night market in Keelung, Taiwan, lined with brightly lit food stalls\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1277\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/EatingTaiwanese_main.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/EatingTaiwanese_main-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/EatingTaiwanese_main-1020x678.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/EatingTaiwanese_main-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/EatingTaiwanese_main-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/EatingTaiwanese_main-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u003cem>(Photo by stockinasia/iStock; design by Rebecca Kao)\u003c/em>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">KQED’s \u003c/i>\u003c/em>Eating Taiwanese in the Bay\u003cem>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\"> is a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/eatingtaiwanese\">series of stories\u003c/a> exploring Taiwanese food culture in all of its glorious, delicious complexity.\u003c/i>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__dropcapShortcode__dropcap\">F\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>or as long as I’ve lived in the Bay Area, I’ve spent more time searching for Taiwanese food than I have actually eating it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’ve driven 90 minutes in traffic to snag a so-so plate of stinky tofu. I’ve stood in line for four hours for takeout Taiwanese breakfast. And who knows how long I’ve spent scouring online discussion forums and Yelp listings for even the briefest mention of lu rou fan or beef noodle soup?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For many of the 30,000-plus Taiwanese Americans who live in the Bay Area, Taiwanese food is largely a cuisine of nostalgia. It’s a cuisine of memories from 10 or 20 years ago and 6,000 miles away. It’s the 24-hour shao bing and you tiao joint around the corner from my grandma’s apartment in Taipei, or the night market stall where my uncle first goaded me into trying stinky tofu, or the mango shaved ice that damn near saved my life on a sweltering mid-summer afternoon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What it \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">isn’t\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is a cuisine I get to experience much of in my day-to-day. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Notwithstanding a handful of suburban enclaves in places like Fremont and Cupertino, the Bay Area has never really been known as a stronghold for Taiwanese food. In wide swaths of the region, you’d be lucky to find even \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">one \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taiwanese restaurant—and even then, the food might be a pale approximation of the real deal. As Christopher Lam, a San Francisco native who co-runs the beef noodle soup pop-up \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/yilanfoods/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yilan Foods\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, puts it, “When was the last time you could walk around the corner and find Taiwanese food?”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There are signs, however, that things are changing. One of the pleasant surprises of the pandemic has been the many new Taiwanese-inspired pop-ups and Instagram-based food businesses cropping up all over the Bay, many of them to much acclaim. Yilan Foods got a full write-up in the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/article/New-Bay-Area-pop-up-is-delivering-on-a-Taiwanese-15883184.php\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">; during the (now-paused) weekly pop-up’s tenure on Piedmont Avenue, it routinely sold out of its beef noodle soup, aka niu rou mian, just hours—sometimes even minutes—after opening online pre-orders for the week. An East Bay pop-up called \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/home_flavory_eats/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Home Flavory Eats\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> offering Taiwanese pineapple cake, or feng li su, became \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://sf.eater.com/2021/2/9/22273464/home-flavory-eats-taiwanese-pineapple-cakes-lunar-new-year-washington-bakery\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">so popular\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> that it had a weeks’ long waiting list at various points this past winter. And last month, when Oakland’s \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://www.taiwanbento.us/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taiwan Bento\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> served up boxes of dan bing and fan tuan at the restaurant’s first ever \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://sf.eater.com/2021/2/19/22290174/taiwan-bento-dan-bing-scallion-egg-pancake-taiwanese-breakfast\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taiwanese breakfast\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> pop-up, the line of customers wound all the way around the block, all morning long.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897347\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1981px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897347\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/048_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021.jpg\" alt=\"Stacy Tang holds a steamed bun in the kitchen at her restaurant, Taiwan Bento.\" width=\"1981\" height=\"1321\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/048_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021.jpg 1981w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/048_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/048_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/048_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/048_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/048_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/048_KQEDArts_TaiwanBento_05082021-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1981px) 100vw, 1981px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Stacy Tang (left) prepares some steamed bao at her Oakland restaurant, Taiwan Bento. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, the demand is clearly there. There are signs, in fact, that the Bay Area is on the cusp of a Taiwanese food “moment,” as a new generation of Taiwanese American cooks joins the established South Bay mom-and-pop scene. These restaurants and pop-ups have brought the cuisine of their homeland into the spotlight—and given a flicker of hope to the stinky tofu lovers and niu rou mian connoisseurs among us, who walk around in a state of perpetual longing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>One of the World’s Greatest Food Destinations\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Part of the problem is that in much of the United States, there still isn’t a tremendous amount of awareness about Taiwanese cuisine—or, for that matter, Taiwan itself—outside of the Taiwanese American community. The small island nation, located some 100 miles off the eastern coast of China, isn’t a member of the United Nations—and doesn’t, in fact, have official diplomatic relations with the vast majority of the countries in the world, including the United States. China, which regards Taiwan as a renegade province, is perpetually \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/4/14/is-there-really-a-risk-that-china-will-go-to-war-with-taiwan\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">threatening to invade the island\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Despite those thorny geopolitics, Taiwan has garnered a reputation as one the world’s greatest food destinations. But that doesn’t mean its most famous dishes have really entered the mainstream food vernacular. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Stacy Tang, who runs Taiwan Bento along with her husband Willy Wang, says that when she first opened her restaurant in Oakland in 2014, many customers hadn’t even heard of Taiwan; they were just as likely to ask if the restaurant was serving Thai food. “A couple of people every week would ask, ‘What is Taiwan?’ or ‘Does Taiwan have anything to do with Japan?’” Tang says. On the menu, they listed their gua bao as a “Taiwanese sandwich” for fear that people wouldn’t understand what it was. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As recently as three years ago, when Angie Lin and Tony Tung opened \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.goodtoeatdumplings.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Good to Eat Dumplings\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> as a permanent pop-up inside Original Pattern Brewing in Oakland’s Jack London district, the wife-and-wife duo didn’t think the cuisine had enough name recognition for them to even use the word “Taiwanese” in their branding—even though the potstickers and other dumplings they sell are distinctly Taiwanese in style. “If it’s Thai style or Vietnamese style, there’s some sort of stereotype or general public perception,” Lin says. “For us, if we mention ‘Taiwanese,’ there’s \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">no\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> general perception.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even restaurants that do explicitly self-identify as Taiwanese are often \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://projects.sfchronicle.com/guides/bay-area-chinese-cuisine/cuisines/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">miscategorized, in local food coverage, as “regional Chinese”\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">—a politically fraught assertion that could be grounds for a fistfight if you make it in the wrong company. Though calling it a miscategorization might also be a bit too simplistic: As Lin explains, Taiwanese cuisine is a hodgepodge of influences that include the food of Taiwan’s aboriginal peoples, 50 years of Japanese occupation, dishes from many different regions of China (a result of the influx of transplants after the Chinese Civil War ended in 1949), hybridized dishes like beef noodle soup that were created by the defeated Nationalist soldiers who had fled to Taiwan, and the island’s ever-evolving street food culture.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ultimately, it’s all of those influences, combined with the island’s incredible wealth of fresh produce, that give Taiwanese cuisine its own uniquely delicious character—with flavors that lean heavily on sesame oil, black bean paste and Taiwanese soy sauce, Lin explains. These are the tastes that so many Taiwanese Americans in the Bay Area have been missing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Fueled by Nostalgia\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What do you do, then, if you’re a second-generation Taiwanese American kid in Oakland or San Francisco who has acquired a taste for beef noodle soup, but can’t find a bowl here that measures up to the ones you slurped down on Yongkang Street in Taipei? Maybe you try to reverse-engineer your own version.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That impulse, as much as anything, has driven the Bay Area’s new wave of Taiwanese food entrepreneurs. Fueled by nostalgia (and perhaps a little bit of desperation), these young Taiwanese American cooks are determined to replicate—and then elaborate on—the tastes and textures of whatever elusive dish first captured their imagination.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“You have this memory set in your head,” says Eric Sim, who founded Yilan Foods along with Christopher Lam, Alex Tong and Itthisak “TT” Rampaiyakul. Searching for Taiwanese food in the Bay Area, Sim says, “it always felt like it was lacking something.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sim still thinks about the beef noodle soup stall outside his aunt’s apartment from a trip he took to visit his mother’s native Yilan, just southeast of Taipei, more than a decade ago. “I vividly remember which stall number it is on the street, and I can tell you that there’s a stinky tofu shop a block and a half away that serves potstickers that are amazing,” he says. “My fondest memories of Taiwan are food-related.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897357\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1125px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897357\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/YilanFoods_luroufan.jpg\" alt=\"A bowl of lu rou fan, or braised pork rice, garnished with cilantro and yellow daikon pickles.\" width=\"1125\" height=\"1115\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/YilanFoods_luroufan.jpg 1125w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/YilanFoods_luroufan-800x793.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/YilanFoods_luroufan-1020x1011.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/YilanFoods_luroufan-160x159.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/YilanFoods_luroufan-768x761.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1125px) 100vw, 1125px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Yilan Foods pop-up’s signature lu rou fan. \u003ccite>(Yilan Foods)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As the only person of Taiwanese descent on the Yilan Foods team, Sim says the business was inspired by his family’s recipes: a beef noodle soup that’s meant to make customers think, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This brings me back to Taiwan\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, and a version of lu rou fan, or braised pork rice, that’s made with hand-cut pork belly, just as all the best spots in Taiwan do. By all accounts, the pop-up has been wildly successful—enough so that its founders are in the process of securing a location for a full-fledged restaurant, most likely in San Francisco.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Other efforts have been more localized in scale. Ashley Yan, who started an informal lu rou fan delivery service called \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://asyan77.wixsite.com/ashyansfood\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ashyan’s Lu Rou Fan\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in San Francisco’s Richmond district this past winter, says her frustration with the local Taiwanese food scene, especially in SF proper, was the biggest motivation to perfect her own recipe—though getting laid off from her day job due to the pandemic also played a part: “I think it was a perfect storm,” she says. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Initially, Yan just gave away portions of her lu rou fan for free via her neighborhood’s “Buy Nothing” Facebook group. But the response was so overwhelmingly positive, Yan says, that she started taking orders and running deliveries all over the western part of the city. Each time, she’d sell out within a couple of hours. Yan has since stopped the pop-up for the time being, but her experience convinced her that the demand for Taiwanese food is as high as it has ever been: “I definitely think the Bay Area is ready for it.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Meanwhile, Daniel and Jeffrey Hsu say their ambitions aren’t limited to the Bay Area. In August, the brothers founded \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://mumumeals.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mumu\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a San Francisco-based frozen beef noodle soup delivery service that currently ships all over the West Coast. But the company’s long-term goal is to ship to anywhere in the U.S. As Jeffrey puts it, “I want to bring Taiwanese food to the national scene.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Part of the appeal of Mumu’s heat-and-eat niu rou mian is that it provides convenient access to a dish that so many Taiwanese Americans are homesick for. In parts of the country without a sizable Taiwanese population, it has the potential to be the best option available. But a broader sign of the company’s success is that it’s now reaching an audience that isn’t just Taiwanese—or even necessarily Asian, Jeffrey notes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That shift, perhaps as much as anything, shows the change in how Taiwanese food is now perceived—from something of a niche product, sold by immigrant chefs within their own communities, to a cuisine with recognizable mainstream appeal. In places like Los Angeles and New York, the nascent movement has already reached an even more advanced stage—to the point that many of the cities’ \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.pineandcrane.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">trendiest\u003c/span>\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.eater.com/22412142/eric-sze-video-new-guard\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">name chef\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> restaurants are Taiwanese. Los Angeles now even has a \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.katorestaurant.com/menu\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taiwanese-inspired fine dining\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> spot.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The Taiwanese Food Moment\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">is\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Taiwanese food having a bit of a moment here in the Bay Area? To an extent, the question itself feels slightly disrespectful, as though the cuisine were in need of outside validation—to say nothing of the many, many mom-and-pop Taiwanese restaurants that have been holding it down for years in the South Bay. But, for both the old standbys and the newcomers to the scene, there is a sense that more people are getting excited about Taiwanese food than ever before.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of those mainstays is the South Bay food truck \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/Mama-Liu-Taiwanese-Street-Food-424857264260232/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mama Liu\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, which George Fan has run since 2014 along with his mother, Mimi Liu. During the pandemic, the truck has sold its menu of traditional Taiwanese street food dishes, including what many consider to be one of the best versions of stinky tofu available in the Bay, just once a week, almost exclusively to Taiwanese customers. Its pre-order form, accessible via \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/Mama-Liu-Taiwanese-Street-Food-424857264260232/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">the truck’s Facebook page\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, isn’t even available in English.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For businesses like Mama Liu, there’s no question that Taiwanese immigrants are the primary customer base. But these days, Fan says that he, too, is hopeful that customers of all different ethnicities might start to embrace his food. Lately, he says, he’s been asking himself, “How come Taiwanese beef noodle is not as popular as pho?” Maybe 2021 will be the year that becomes a legitimate debate.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13897361\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2048px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13897361\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Mumu_GraceLee-1.jpg\" alt=\"Overhead view of a bowl of beef noodle soup, garnished with bok choy and chopped scallions, on a wood table.\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Mumu_GraceLee-1.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Mumu_GraceLee-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Mumu_GraceLee-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Mumu_GraceLee-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Mumu_GraceLee-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Mumu_GraceLee-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Mumu_GraceLee-1-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mumu’s frozen beef noodle soup may soon be available to ship anywhere in the U.S. \u003ccite>(Grace Lee)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What I know is this: All of my earliest and most consequential food memories are from the trips my family took to Taipei when I was a kid. I remember the giddy feeling of walking around the Shilin night market for the first time with a fried chicken cutlet the size of a child’s baseball mitt. I remember the specific brand of instant noodle we used to buy at the convenience store. And I remember sitting at the table with my grandmother, long after everyone else had finished eating, bonding with her over our shared dedication to picking every last morsel of meat off a steamed fish head.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ever since the start of the pandemic—or, really, since the last time I visited—I’ve been thinking about when I’d be able to board a plane to get back to Taiwan. But now, for maybe the first time, I’m also thinking about where I might eat Taiwanese food this weekend, here in the Bay Area—and wondering which dish will make me feel like I’ve gone home again.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "At Japantown Legacy Businesses Benkyodo and On the Bridge, Resilience is on the Menu",
"headTitle": "At Japantown Legacy Businesses Benkyodo and On the Bridge, Resilience is on the Menu | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[dropcap]A[/dropcap] sea of little bottles in aqua, pink and seafoam green line the long bar of \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://onthebridgesf.com/?utm_source=gmb&utm_medium=referral\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On the Bridge\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in San Francisco\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sfjapantown.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Japantown\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Chef Mitsuhiro Nakamura is proud of his ability to choose the perfect sake from his collection to match the taste of any diner. But when the shelter in place started last spring, the restaurant Nakamura and his wife Yolanda had run for 30 years immediately lost 90 percent of its business due to its location on the narrow, enclosed bridgeway connecting the Japan Center’s West Mall and Kinokuniya building. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Without direct street access, On the Bridge was literally marooned.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">San Francisco’s Japantown, as a whole, has been hit hard by the COVID-19 crisis. Several businesses have \u003ca href=\"https://sf.eater.com/2021/1/29/22254711/takara-sf-japantown-permanent-closure-japan-center-kiss-seafood\">permanently closed\u003c/a>, and those located in the malls have been in the toughest spots, in part due to a rent dispute with the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11837511/whats-lost-in-bay-area-asian-culture-when-sf-eviction-moratorium-ends\">Japan Center landlords\u003c/a>. Still, legacy businesses like On the Bridge and the 115-year-old mochi shop Benkyodo have \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">managed to keep their doors open in spite of the challenges of the pandemic—even as their owners head into their 70s. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[aside postID=news_11846796,news_11837511 label='More on Japantown']For On the Bridge, the restaurant’s 85 different sakes and 27 Japanese beers (plus people’s pandemic thirst for alcohol) provided a lifeline to allow the Nakamuras to hold on and slowly inch their way back.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Besides describing the restaurant’s physical location in the mall, the name “On the Bridge” also represents the link that its yoshoku style dishes make between Japanese and European cuisines. Chef Nakamura says he was the first Bay Area chef to specialize in this style of fusion cooking, which traces its roots back to 1868, when Emperor Meiji first welcomed Western ideas as helpful for Japan’s progress. Some non-Japanese diners may be unfamiliar with yoshoku’s comforting standbys, but these are the dishes that Japanese mothers often make for their children: curries, cutlets, Japanese-style hamburgers, omu-rice (omelet stuffed with fried rice) and fish roe–studded spaghettis. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13896755\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13896755\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/On-the-Bridge_omurice-800x559.jpg\" alt=\"Omu-rice with squiggles of ketchup and mayonnaise on top. \" width=\"800\" height=\"559\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/On-the-Bridge_omurice-800x559.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/On-the-Bridge_omurice-1020x712.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/On-the-Bridge_omurice-160x112.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/On-the-Bridge_omurice-768x536.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/On-the-Bridge_omurice-1536x1073.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/On-the-Bridge_omurice-2048x1430.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/On-the-Bridge_omurice-1920x1341.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Omu-rice is one of On the Bridge’s Japanese-style Western dishes. \u003ccite>(Anna Mindess)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At On the Bridge, Yolanda Nakamura says, many first-time customers don’t know what to make of the menu: “They sit down at the long wooden counter and ask ‘Where’s the sushi?’ When I tell them we have none, they say, ‘I thought in Japan everyone eats sushi, tempura and teriyaki—not spaghetti!’ Often, they walk out.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Nevertheless, the restaurant’s comforting food has many devoted fans, not all of whom are Japanese. The punk rock icon \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://sf.eater.com/2019/1/23/18193157/patti-smith-sf-japantown-restaurant-on-the-bridge\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Patti Smith, for instance, has often waxed rhapsodic\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> about its 23 kinds of pasta and Lenny’s brand wasabi beer.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Curries, in particular, are chef Nakamura’s specialty. “Curry is very hard to make,” Yolanda says. “Chef makes it from scratch, and it takes three to four days of slow cooking. Sometimes younger customers say, ‘I could make that much quicker with a mix.’ If the chef heard that, he would get upset, so I just push my husband away.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13896756\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13896756\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/On-the-Bridge_owners-800x465.jpg\" alt=\"Owners Yolanda (left) and Mitsuhiro Nakamura stand behind the bar at their restaurant On the Bridge. \" width=\"800\" height=\"465\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/On-the-Bridge_owners-800x465.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/On-the-Bridge_owners-1020x593.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/On-the-Bridge_owners-160x93.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/On-the-Bridge_owners-768x446.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/On-the-Bridge_owners-1536x893.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/On-the-Bridge_owners-2048x1191.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/On-the-Bridge_owners-1920x1116.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Yolanda (left) and Mitsuhiro Nakamura have run their yoshoku restaurant, On the Bridge, for more than 30 years. \u003ccite>(Anna Mindess)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When the pandemic closed the mall, the restaurant’s new reliance on delivery apps and social media presented a big challenge for the Nakamuras. Luckily, their daughter Emi, 29, was able to help hook them up. But a more difficult problem was that since both entrances to the mall were closed, when a delivery app driver arrived, either the chef or Yolanda had to run downstairs—sometimes both of them, one to each entrance. The couple couldn’t leave the restaurant unattended, so eventually they hired back one of their employees to help.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Each of the three times On the Bridge was allowed to reopen for indoor dining, alcohol was one of the bestsellers. Customers would sit down for a drink while waiting for a table at another restaurant. After dinner, they’d return for another round. The Nakamuras are cautiously hopeful now, as business seems to be picking up. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even in the early weeks of the pandemic, when days went by with no sales, Yolanda says, “My husband was determined not to quit. He does it for the pleasure of cooking, not for the money. He’s 70, but not ready to retire.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I’ll be here until my body doesn’t move anymore,” chef Nakamura says. “My job is to spread the love of sake.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13896752\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13896752\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Benkyodo_mochi-800x584.jpg\" alt=\"A man holds a tray of green mochi in paper sleeves.\" width=\"800\" height=\"584\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Benkyodo_mochi-800x584.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Benkyodo_mochi-1020x745.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Benkyodo_mochi-160x117.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Benkyodo_mochi-768x561.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Benkyodo_mochi-1536x1121.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Benkyodo_mochi-2048x1495.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Benkyodo_mochi-1920x1402.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A tray of Benkyodo’s famous mochi. \u003ccite>(Anna Mindess)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[dropcap]S[/dropcap]tuff, roll, pinch. That’s the mantra for handmade mochi. Ricky and Bobby Okamura, the owners of \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://www.benkyodocompany.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Benkyodo\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, repeat that process over 1,000 times a day, wrapping smooth rice flour skin around dollops of sweet bean paste five days a week for over 30 years now. Benkyodo itself has an even longer history: Open since 1906, the 115-year-old mochi shop is Japantown’s oldest business.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even the COVID-19 crisis couldn’t completely halt the mochi production line. Like a vintage engine, with fits and starts, it stopped, but eventually started up again.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“The pandemic was hard for us,” Bobby Okamura says. “We had to close for two and a half months.” Pre-COVID, the brothers made about 1,500 pieces of mochi and manju a day in 15 different flavors. Now, that figure is down to around 1,000 pieces in 7 to 10 flavors.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The narrow space on Buchanan Street is about the size of a BART car. Across from the mochi display cases, there’s a low, diner-style lunch counter with red stools that has not changed for 50 years, where regulars would gather daily for coffee and catching up. But no more: With COVID guidelines, only two customers are allowed in the shop at a time—cash only, as has always been the case. Business is way down on weekdays, the Okamuras say, but Fridays and Saturdays often see a line of customers waiting in the plaza.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We could make [the mochi] by machine,” concedes Bobby, shaking his head. He’s now 66 and works from 7am to 4pm. “But all the pieces would look exactly the same, without the texture from being handmade. Ours have a unique taste, texture and look.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ricky, who is 70 and works from 5am to noon, puts it simply: “This is not easy work.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Mochi is very important to the community,” explains Alice Kawahatsu, a third-generation Japanese American who has brought visitors to Benkyodo on her Japantown Tasting Tour with \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://edibleexcursions.net/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Edible Excursions\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> for the past 10 years.\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> “It plays an essential role in several holidays, especially New Year’s. And it’s the perfect gift when visiting someone’s home.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The sweets are traditionally filled with red or white bean paste, but the Okamuras have added a few innovations, incorporating seasonal fruit such as strawberries, blueberries or mango.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Suyeichi Okamura, Ricky and Bobby’s grandfather, opened the original Benkyodo storefront in 1906, a few blocks away on Geary. Suyeichi is the one who coined the name Benkyodo, Bobby explains. He chose a word that means “affordable” to reassure community members that they could shop there comfortably. Suyeichi also penned the store’s motto: “Confections that win affections.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 1942, Bobby and Ricky’s grandparents and father were sent to an \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://amache.org/overview/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">internment camp in Amache\u003c/span>\u003c/a>,\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Colorado. Suyeichi asked his Chinese neighbor to watch over his store while he was gone—which he did. His son, Hirofumi—Bobby and Ricky’s father—who was a teenager at the time, met his future wife, Sue, in the camp. They lived in that harsh and desolate place for three years, not knowing if their home and business would be there when they returned. Luckily, they were.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That history resonates with Kawahatsu, the Japantown tour guide, whose own mother and grandparents were incarcerated in \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tulelake.org/history\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Tule Lake\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“The first and second generation sacrificed so much so that we could be here today to continue to share our rich history, stories and food with our families and others who visit and want to learn more about Japanese arts and food. There is a sense of obligation, but also a pride in our rich heritage.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The start of the pandemic in 2020 marked only the second time in its 115-year history that Benkyodo has had to close. Internment wasn’t able to kill the business. So far, it doesn’t look like COVID will be able to either.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13896751\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13896751\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Benkyodo_owners-800x512.jpg\" alt=\"Benkyodo owners Ricky and Bobby Nakamura stuff pink mochi with white bean paste \" width=\"800\" height=\"512\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Benkyodo_owners-800x512.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Benkyodo_owners-1020x653.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Benkyodo_owners-160x102.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Benkyodo_owners-768x492.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Benkyodo_owners-1536x984.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Benkyodo_owners-2048x1312.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Benkyodo_owners-1920x1230.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">After rolling mochi for more than 30 years, Ricky (left) and Bobby Okamura are finally getting ready to retire. \u003ccite>(Anna Mindess)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For the Okamura brothers, the store has always been part of their lives, as they lived with their family in an apartment upstairs. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But their father didn’t force them to take over the store, they point out. (“It \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">was an option,” Bobby says.) Now, after years of speculation swirling around the community about whether Benkyodo will be sold or closed, Bobby and Ricky have finally decided to retire at the end of the year. They are actively negotiating with possible buyers. “Our strong preference would be for a family member,” says Bobby. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If the Okamuras aren’t able to find a buyer, it would be a huge loss to the Bay Area’s Japanese American community, Kawahatsu says. “No other place compares to its delicious confections or its rich history and legacy.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Despite the long hours and physical demands of their work, Bobby says, “We have been happy to serve our community and glad that people enjoy what we make.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12904247\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"39\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-160x16.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-240x23.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-375x37.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On the Bridge is open at \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">1581 Webster Street #206 in San Francisco, \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Monday–Wednesday noon–7 pm and Friday and Saturday noon–9pm (closed Thursday). 415-922-7765.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Benkyodo is open at \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">1747 Buchanan Street in\u003c/span>\u003c/i> \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">San Francisco, \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Tuesday–Saturday 9am–4:00pm. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">415-922-1244,\u003c/span>\u003c/i> c\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">ash only.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "A beloved mochi shop closed for only the second time in 115 years. Now it's back open again.",
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"title": "At Japantown Legacy Businesses Benkyodo and On the Bridge, Resilience is on the Menu | KQED",
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"headline": "At Japantown Legacy Businesses Benkyodo and On the Bridge, Resilience is on the Menu",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__dropcapShortcode__dropcap\">A\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp> sea of little bottles in aqua, pink and seafoam green line the long bar of \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://onthebridgesf.com/?utm_source=gmb&utm_medium=referral\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On the Bridge\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in San Francisco\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sfjapantown.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Japantown\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Chef Mitsuhiro Nakamura is proud of his ability to choose the perfect sake from his collection to match the taste of any diner. But when the shelter in place started last spring, the restaurant Nakamura and his wife Yolanda had run for 30 years immediately lost 90 percent of its business due to its location on the narrow, enclosed bridgeway connecting the Japan Center’s West Mall and Kinokuniya building. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Without direct street access, On the Bridge was literally marooned.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">San Francisco’s Japantown, as a whole, has been hit hard by the COVID-19 crisis. Several businesses have \u003ca href=\"https://sf.eater.com/2021/1/29/22254711/takara-sf-japantown-permanent-closure-japan-center-kiss-seafood\">permanently closed\u003c/a>, and those located in the malls have been in the toughest spots, in part due to a rent dispute with the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11837511/whats-lost-in-bay-area-asian-culture-when-sf-eviction-moratorium-ends\">Japan Center landlords\u003c/a>. Still, legacy businesses like On the Bridge and the 115-year-old mochi shop Benkyodo have \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">managed to keep their doors open in spite of the challenges of the pandemic—even as their owners head into their 70s. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>For On the Bridge, the restaurant’s 85 different sakes and 27 Japanese beers (plus people’s pandemic thirst for alcohol) provided a lifeline to allow the Nakamuras to hold on and slowly inch their way back.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Besides describing the restaurant’s physical location in the mall, the name “On the Bridge” also represents the link that its yoshoku style dishes make between Japanese and European cuisines. Chef Nakamura says he was the first Bay Area chef to specialize in this style of fusion cooking, which traces its roots back to 1868, when Emperor Meiji first welcomed Western ideas as helpful for Japan’s progress. Some non-Japanese diners may be unfamiliar with yoshoku’s comforting standbys, but these are the dishes that Japanese mothers often make for their children: curries, cutlets, Japanese-style hamburgers, omu-rice (omelet stuffed with fried rice) and fish roe–studded spaghettis. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13896755\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13896755\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/On-the-Bridge_omurice-800x559.jpg\" alt=\"Omu-rice with squiggles of ketchup and mayonnaise on top. \" width=\"800\" height=\"559\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/On-the-Bridge_omurice-800x559.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/On-the-Bridge_omurice-1020x712.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/On-the-Bridge_omurice-160x112.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/On-the-Bridge_omurice-768x536.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/On-the-Bridge_omurice-1536x1073.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/On-the-Bridge_omurice-2048x1430.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/On-the-Bridge_omurice-1920x1341.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Omu-rice is one of On the Bridge’s Japanese-style Western dishes. \u003ccite>(Anna Mindess)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At On the Bridge, Yolanda Nakamura says, many first-time customers don’t know what to make of the menu: “They sit down at the long wooden counter and ask ‘Where’s the sushi?’ When I tell them we have none, they say, ‘I thought in Japan everyone eats sushi, tempura and teriyaki—not spaghetti!’ Often, they walk out.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Nevertheless, the restaurant’s comforting food has many devoted fans, not all of whom are Japanese. The punk rock icon \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://sf.eater.com/2019/1/23/18193157/patti-smith-sf-japantown-restaurant-on-the-bridge\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Patti Smith, for instance, has often waxed rhapsodic\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> about its 23 kinds of pasta and Lenny’s brand wasabi beer.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Curries, in particular, are chef Nakamura’s specialty. “Curry is very hard to make,” Yolanda says. “Chef makes it from scratch, and it takes three to four days of slow cooking. Sometimes younger customers say, ‘I could make that much quicker with a mix.’ If the chef heard that, he would get upset, so I just push my husband away.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13896756\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13896756\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/On-the-Bridge_owners-800x465.jpg\" alt=\"Owners Yolanda (left) and Mitsuhiro Nakamura stand behind the bar at their restaurant On the Bridge. \" width=\"800\" height=\"465\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/On-the-Bridge_owners-800x465.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/On-the-Bridge_owners-1020x593.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/On-the-Bridge_owners-160x93.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/On-the-Bridge_owners-768x446.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/On-the-Bridge_owners-1536x893.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/On-the-Bridge_owners-2048x1191.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/On-the-Bridge_owners-1920x1116.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Yolanda (left) and Mitsuhiro Nakamura have run their yoshoku restaurant, On the Bridge, for more than 30 years. \u003ccite>(Anna Mindess)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When the pandemic closed the mall, the restaurant’s new reliance on delivery apps and social media presented a big challenge for the Nakamuras. Luckily, their daughter Emi, 29, was able to help hook them up. But a more difficult problem was that since both entrances to the mall were closed, when a delivery app driver arrived, either the chef or Yolanda had to run downstairs—sometimes both of them, one to each entrance. The couple couldn’t leave the restaurant unattended, so eventually they hired back one of their employees to help.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Each of the three times On the Bridge was allowed to reopen for indoor dining, alcohol was one of the bestsellers. Customers would sit down for a drink while waiting for a table at another restaurant. After dinner, they’d return for another round. The Nakamuras are cautiously hopeful now, as business seems to be picking up. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even in the early weeks of the pandemic, when days went by with no sales, Yolanda says, “My husband was determined not to quit. He does it for the pleasure of cooking, not for the money. He’s 70, but not ready to retire.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I’ll be here until my body doesn’t move anymore,” chef Nakamura says. “My job is to spread the love of sake.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13896752\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13896752\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Benkyodo_mochi-800x584.jpg\" alt=\"A man holds a tray of green mochi in paper sleeves.\" width=\"800\" height=\"584\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Benkyodo_mochi-800x584.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Benkyodo_mochi-1020x745.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Benkyodo_mochi-160x117.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Benkyodo_mochi-768x561.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Benkyodo_mochi-1536x1121.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Benkyodo_mochi-2048x1495.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Benkyodo_mochi-1920x1402.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A tray of Benkyodo’s famous mochi. \u003ccite>(Anna Mindess)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__dropcapShortcode__dropcap\">S\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>tuff, roll, pinch. That’s the mantra for handmade mochi. Ricky and Bobby Okamura, the owners of \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://www.benkyodocompany.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Benkyodo\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, repeat that process over 1,000 times a day, wrapping smooth rice flour skin around dollops of sweet bean paste five days a week for over 30 years now. Benkyodo itself has an even longer history: Open since 1906, the 115-year-old mochi shop is Japantown’s oldest business.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even the COVID-19 crisis couldn’t completely halt the mochi production line. Like a vintage engine, with fits and starts, it stopped, but eventually started up again.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“The pandemic was hard for us,” Bobby Okamura says. “We had to close for two and a half months.” Pre-COVID, the brothers made about 1,500 pieces of mochi and manju a day in 15 different flavors. Now, that figure is down to around 1,000 pieces in 7 to 10 flavors.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The narrow space on Buchanan Street is about the size of a BART car. Across from the mochi display cases, there’s a low, diner-style lunch counter with red stools that has not changed for 50 years, where regulars would gather daily for coffee and catching up. But no more: With COVID guidelines, only two customers are allowed in the shop at a time—cash only, as has always been the case. Business is way down on weekdays, the Okamuras say, but Fridays and Saturdays often see a line of customers waiting in the plaza.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We could make [the mochi] by machine,” concedes Bobby, shaking his head. He’s now 66 and works from 7am to 4pm. “But all the pieces would look exactly the same, without the texture from being handmade. Ours have a unique taste, texture and look.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ricky, who is 70 and works from 5am to noon, puts it simply: “This is not easy work.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Mochi is very important to the community,” explains Alice Kawahatsu, a third-generation Japanese American who has brought visitors to Benkyodo on her Japantown Tasting Tour with \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://edibleexcursions.net/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Edible Excursions\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> for the past 10 years.\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> “It plays an essential role in several holidays, especially New Year’s. And it’s the perfect gift when visiting someone’s home.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The sweets are traditionally filled with red or white bean paste, but the Okamuras have added a few innovations, incorporating seasonal fruit such as strawberries, blueberries or mango.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Suyeichi Okamura, Ricky and Bobby’s grandfather, opened the original Benkyodo storefront in 1906, a few blocks away on Geary. Suyeichi is the one who coined the name Benkyodo, Bobby explains. He chose a word that means “affordable” to reassure community members that they could shop there comfortably. Suyeichi also penned the store’s motto: “Confections that win affections.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 1942, Bobby and Ricky’s grandparents and father were sent to an \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://amache.org/overview/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">internment camp in Amache\u003c/span>\u003c/a>,\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Colorado. Suyeichi asked his Chinese neighbor to watch over his store while he was gone—which he did. His son, Hirofumi—Bobby and Ricky’s father—who was a teenager at the time, met his future wife, Sue, in the camp. They lived in that harsh and desolate place for three years, not knowing if their home and business would be there when they returned. Luckily, they were.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That history resonates with Kawahatsu, the Japantown tour guide, whose own mother and grandparents were incarcerated in \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tulelake.org/history\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Tule Lake\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“The first and second generation sacrificed so much so that we could be here today to continue to share our rich history, stories and food with our families and others who visit and want to learn more about Japanese arts and food. There is a sense of obligation, but also a pride in our rich heritage.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The start of the pandemic in 2020 marked only the second time in its 115-year history that Benkyodo has had to close. Internment wasn’t able to kill the business. So far, it doesn’t look like COVID will be able to either.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13896751\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13896751\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Benkyodo_owners-800x512.jpg\" alt=\"Benkyodo owners Ricky and Bobby Nakamura stuff pink mochi with white bean paste \" width=\"800\" height=\"512\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Benkyodo_owners-800x512.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Benkyodo_owners-1020x653.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Benkyodo_owners-160x102.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Benkyodo_owners-768x492.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Benkyodo_owners-1536x984.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Benkyodo_owners-2048x1312.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/Benkyodo_owners-1920x1230.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">After rolling mochi for more than 30 years, Ricky (left) and Bobby Okamura are finally getting ready to retire. \u003ccite>(Anna Mindess)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For the Okamura brothers, the store has always been part of their lives, as they lived with their family in an apartment upstairs. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But their father didn’t force them to take over the store, they point out. (“It \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">was an option,” Bobby says.) Now, after years of speculation swirling around the community about whether Benkyodo will be sold or closed, Bobby and Ricky have finally decided to retire at the end of the year. They are actively negotiating with possible buyers. “Our strong preference would be for a family member,” says Bobby. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If the Okamuras aren’t able to find a buyer, it would be a huge loss to the Bay Area’s Japanese American community, Kawahatsu says. “No other place compares to its delicious confections or its rich history and legacy.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Despite the long hours and physical demands of their work, Bobby says, “We have been happy to serve our community and glad that people enjoy what we make.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12904247\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"39\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-160x16.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-240x23.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-375x37.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On the Bridge is open at \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">1581 Webster Street #206 in San Francisco, \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Monday–Wednesday noon–7 pm and Friday and Saturday noon–9pm (closed Thursday). 415-922-7765.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Benkyodo is open at \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">1747 Buchanan Street in\u003c/span>\u003c/i> \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">San Francisco, \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Tuesday–Saturday 9am–4:00pm. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">415-922-1244,\u003c/span>\u003c/i> c\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">ash only.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Fruitvale's Ruby Q Smoke Fusion Slings Barbecue Inspired by Mexico and Louisiana",
"headTitle": "Fruitvale’s Ruby Q Smoke Fusion Slings Barbecue Inspired by Mexico and Louisiana | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[dropcap]I[/dropcap]f I’m being honest, the East Bay doesn’t have enough barbecue. There’s only a handful of small, family-owned joints around here—and I support them when I can. So, when a local friend told me about \u003ca href=\"https://rubyqsmokefusion.com/\">Ruby Q Smoke Fusion\u003c/a>, a new barbecue spot in East Oakland, I made sure to check it out. I was extra hyped when I found out that it was run by a young married couple from the area, Reuben Mcelligott and Edlyn Rodriguez.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“It’s called fusion for a reason. I mean, look at the neighborhood we’re at and who we serve,” Rodriguez says. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She’s talking about Fruitvale, where you’ll find some of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/bayareabites/135813/5-food-trucks-that-put-regional-mexican-plates-on-the-map\">best taco trucks anywhere on the entire West Coast\u003c/a>. The daughter of Mexican immigrants from Jalisco, Rodriguez knows the inside of a kitchen, having learned from her mother. But Ruby Q doesn’t serve traditional Mexican fare. Instead, it’s a fusion of Rodriguez’s culinary heritage combined with her husband’s family trade: Southern-style smoked and grilled meats. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13896416\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-13896416 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_barbecue-800x1200.jpg\" alt=\"Takeout containers of barbecue and mac and cheese on a picnic table.\" width=\"800\" height=\"1200\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_barbecue-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_barbecue-1020x1530.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_barbecue-160x240.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_barbecue-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_barbecue-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_barbecue-1365x2048.jpg 1365w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_barbecue-1920x2880.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_barbecue-scaled.jpg 1707w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ribs, brisket, and mac and cheese. \u003ccite>(Briana Chazaro)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The restaurant opened in June 2020, at the height of the pandemic, but with Rodriguez and Mcelligott’s dedication to serving great food while representing their cultures, it has flourished in a much-needed way. Though he jokes that his name sounds “white” because of his Irish grandfather, Mcelligott is a millennial Black dude who was raised around the corner. He was a 90s kid who never fully fit into any box and enjoyed skating, sports and hip hop—all elements that are on display on the restaurant’s walls.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">More importantly, the space is a homage to Mcelligott’s mother’s family, who first started their barbecue business in Louisiana in the early 1900s, and whose influence can still be felt and tasted over a century later. “We use the family recipe from back then for our barbecue sauce. It’s something my family has been doing for as long as I know,” he explains. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Both Mcelligott and Rodriguez are proud of their family’s legacies, and together, they’ve launched a dynamic and affordable culinary outlet that reflects where each of them come from—in a city known for its eclectic spirit of diversity and newness. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[dropcap]S[/dropcap]o what exactly do American barbecue and Mexican food look like when they’re combined together? Try Ruby Q’s barbecue brisket quesadilla—a soft, warm and decadently cheesy mixture of avocado, queso Mexicano, pico de gallo and, of course, a mound of lightly crisped, not-too-tangy brisket inside the gooey middle. You get a taste of both cultures in each mouthful. As a Mexican American from the Bay, I can honestly say it’s the most flavorful (and filling) quesadilla I’ve ever eaten. Sorry, abuelita. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13896418\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13896418\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_quesadilla-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A fried quesadilla topped with sour cream, guacamole, and pico de gallo.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_quesadilla-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_quesadilla-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_quesadilla-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_quesadilla-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_quesadilla-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_quesadilla-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_quesadilla-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The barbecue brisket quesadilla is one of the highlights. \u003ccite>(Briana Chazaro)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A single quesadilla could easily be your entire meal. But this is barbecue, so you’ll have to toss in a side of pulled pork nachos to go with that. Though I’ve eaten nacho remixes like this before, this version was on another level: the perfect combination of fresh tortilla chips, homemade guacamole, cheese, and juicy, fall-apart-on-your-fork pork that has been slow-cooked for hours. If that’s not your style, try the Louisiana gumbo with sausage that is “smoked while you sleep”—a nod to Mcelligott’s Cajun roots—which isn’t commonly offered in traditional barbecue settings. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[aside tag='barbecue' label='More Barbecue']However, the Ruby Q experience goes beyond its culinary heritage. The entire time I was there, the spot was hella active with locals. It’s a homey environment where the entire neighborhood converges, literally, to get a taste. Located at the chaotic intersection of Fruitvale Avenue and San Leandro Street, the restaurant is tucked in between an industrial railroad crossing, a busy highway overpass, a bustling BART station, and two Mexican restaurants. It’s surprisingly easy to miss. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But if you close your eyes and inhale, you’ll only smell one thing: racks of meat being smoked daily. Follow that scent, and you’ll see why everyone is lining up.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">During my recent weeknight visit, I noticed an Asian family, a group of middle-aged Black women, a Mexican couple, teenage Pacific Islanders, and a squad of white city cowboys wearing their hats, boots and belt buckles. Everyone was enjoying the warm backdoor patio and the Mexican music from the bar next door, all while grubbing on group-sized portions of barbecued goodness. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was so busy that I felt guilty for interrupting the husband-and-wife team to ask questions, since they were the sole employees running the show. They even had two of their kids with them that day, who were reading and had built a fort in the corner. But like true Bay Area hustlers, the family made it look as effortless as a Steph Curry three-pointer in the 4th quarter. That’s because for Mcelligott, struggle and sacrifice are nothing new.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I put everything into this. Did you see the billboard on 880 in front of the Coliseum? I put that up because I wanted everyone in my family to see what I was doing for us,” he says, referencing the massive advertisement he purchased when Ruby Q first opened. “Everybody can see that.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13896428\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13896428\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_window-800x533.jpg\" alt='Writing in the restaurant window reads, \"Seafood Gumbo,\" \"Loaded Nachos,\" \"Smoked While You Sleep,\" \"BBQ,\" and \"Open Patio.\"' width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_window-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_window-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_window-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_window-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_window-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_window-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_window-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The restaurant’s window advertises barbecue “smoked while you sleep.” \u003ccite>(Briana Chazaro)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[dropcap]M[/dropcap]celligott’s vision began when he was a teenager growing up in East Oakland. His parents would send him to stay with his relatives in South Lake Tahoe every summer because he would “get into too much trouble” in his neighborhood. It was during those summer months away from the Bay that Mcelligott learned first-hand about his family’s barbecue business. Each year, he’d spend time working for his uncle, who ran Womack’s BBQ for over 40 years. But it was Mcelligott’s grandpa who opened the place in 1979 after helping to launch one of San Francisco’s most iconic barbecue restaurants, \u003ca href=\"http://newfillmore.com/fillmore-classics/leon-was-the-king-of-barbecue/\">Leon’s, in the Fillmore District\u003c/a>.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Between learning how to prepare chicken from expert grill masters, picking out the right types of wood to burn to get that variety of layered, smoky flavors, marinating ribs all day, and also regularly interacting with customers, Mcelligott began to steep himself in the saucy world of barbecue—then eventually added his own flair to the fire.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Working in restaurants was a switch for Mcelligott, who had spent most of his youth playing baseball and other sports. He held onto hopes of going professional until he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2012, forcing him to give up sports at age 23. After six months of chemotherapy, Mcelligott overcame his illness. Rather than being discouraged, he shifted toward a career in his other life’s passion: barbecue.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mcelligott knew he wanted to do something positive for himself—and for his family and community—and after enrolling in Le Cordón Bleu at San Francisco, his hope of bringing a family restaurant to Oakland became a reality.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At this point in our meal, I’d eaten through a delectable portion of mac and cheese, candied beans, a rack of soft ribs, more pulled pork, and everyone’s favorite, a quarter-pound of tender brisket. Between me and a small group of hungry friends, we couldn’t finish it all—which is impressive, considering the relatively low price we paid.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13896424\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13896424\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_Reuben-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_Reuben-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_Reuben-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_Reuben-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_Reuben-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_Reuben-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_Reuben-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_Reuben-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Decorations reflect Mcelligott’s love of sports, skating and hip hop. Rodriguez, his wife, was too busy to be photographed. \u003ccite>(Briana Chazaro)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mcelligott was energetic and upbeat after an entire day’s shift, and throughout our conversation, he was all smiles and laughs. His spirit is radiant and genuinely soulful, like the playfully-decorated walls of his restaurant and the creative family recipes he uses. “This is everything I love,” Mcelligott says. His kids interrupt us with jokes, and he picks up the smallest one. I feel like a longtime friend visiting his home.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Though it wasn’t easy to launch a restaurant amidst a pandemic, Mcelligott tells me, business has been going well, and he and Rodriguez don’t foresee any slow-down. With its mixture of original barbecue recipes, Mexican fusion, Southern hospitality and a vibrant Bay Area energy that reflects the spirit of the neighborhood, Ruby Q Smoke Fusion is more than a place to get your favorite half-rack of ribs and homemade peach cobbler. It’s a place where you will find East Oakland still sustaining itself, and where you know you’ll be welcomed no matter what time it is, even when there is no food left to serve that day because it’s already been eaten.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12904247\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"39\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-160x16.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-240x23.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-375x37.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://rubyqsmokefusion.com/\">Ruby Q Smoke Fusion\u003c/a> is open at 954 Fruitvale Blvd. in Oakland Wednesday through Saturday, noon–8pm, and Sunday, 1–8pm.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "What do you get when you combine traditional Mexican cooking with Southern-style barbecue?",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__dropcapShortcode__dropcap\">I\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>f I’m being honest, the East Bay doesn’t have enough barbecue. There’s only a handful of small, family-owned joints around here—and I support them when I can. So, when a local friend told me about \u003ca href=\"https://rubyqsmokefusion.com/\">Ruby Q Smoke Fusion\u003c/a>, a new barbecue spot in East Oakland, I made sure to check it out. I was extra hyped when I found out that it was run by a young married couple from the area, Reuben Mcelligott and Edlyn Rodriguez.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“It’s called fusion for a reason. I mean, look at the neighborhood we’re at and who we serve,” Rodriguez says. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She’s talking about Fruitvale, where you’ll find some of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/bayareabites/135813/5-food-trucks-that-put-regional-mexican-plates-on-the-map\">best taco trucks anywhere on the entire West Coast\u003c/a>. The daughter of Mexican immigrants from Jalisco, Rodriguez knows the inside of a kitchen, having learned from her mother. But Ruby Q doesn’t serve traditional Mexican fare. Instead, it’s a fusion of Rodriguez’s culinary heritage combined with her husband’s family trade: Southern-style smoked and grilled meats. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13896416\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-13896416 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_barbecue-800x1200.jpg\" alt=\"Takeout containers of barbecue and mac and cheese on a picnic table.\" width=\"800\" height=\"1200\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_barbecue-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_barbecue-1020x1530.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_barbecue-160x240.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_barbecue-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_barbecue-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_barbecue-1365x2048.jpg 1365w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_barbecue-1920x2880.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_barbecue-scaled.jpg 1707w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ribs, brisket, and mac and cheese. \u003ccite>(Briana Chazaro)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The restaurant opened in June 2020, at the height of the pandemic, but with Rodriguez and Mcelligott’s dedication to serving great food while representing their cultures, it has flourished in a much-needed way. Though he jokes that his name sounds “white” because of his Irish grandfather, Mcelligott is a millennial Black dude who was raised around the corner. He was a 90s kid who never fully fit into any box and enjoyed skating, sports and hip hop—all elements that are on display on the restaurant’s walls.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">More importantly, the space is a homage to Mcelligott’s mother’s family, who first started their barbecue business in Louisiana in the early 1900s, and whose influence can still be felt and tasted over a century later. “We use the family recipe from back then for our barbecue sauce. It’s something my family has been doing for as long as I know,” he explains. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Both Mcelligott and Rodriguez are proud of their family’s legacies, and together, they’ve launched a dynamic and affordable culinary outlet that reflects where each of them come from—in a city known for its eclectic spirit of diversity and newness. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__dropcapShortcode__dropcap\">S\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>o what exactly do American barbecue and Mexican food look like when they’re combined together? Try Ruby Q’s barbecue brisket quesadilla—a soft, warm and decadently cheesy mixture of avocado, queso Mexicano, pico de gallo and, of course, a mound of lightly crisped, not-too-tangy brisket inside the gooey middle. You get a taste of both cultures in each mouthful. As a Mexican American from the Bay, I can honestly say it’s the most flavorful (and filling) quesadilla I’ve ever eaten. Sorry, abuelita. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13896418\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13896418\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_quesadilla-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A fried quesadilla topped with sour cream, guacamole, and pico de gallo.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_quesadilla-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_quesadilla-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_quesadilla-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_quesadilla-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_quesadilla-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_quesadilla-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_quesadilla-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The barbecue brisket quesadilla is one of the highlights. \u003ccite>(Briana Chazaro)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A single quesadilla could easily be your entire meal. But this is barbecue, so you’ll have to toss in a side of pulled pork nachos to go with that. Though I’ve eaten nacho remixes like this before, this version was on another level: the perfect combination of fresh tortilla chips, homemade guacamole, cheese, and juicy, fall-apart-on-your-fork pork that has been slow-cooked for hours. If that’s not your style, try the Louisiana gumbo with sausage that is “smoked while you sleep”—a nod to Mcelligott’s Cajun roots—which isn’t commonly offered in traditional barbecue settings. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>However, the Ruby Q experience goes beyond its culinary heritage. The entire time I was there, the spot was hella active with locals. It’s a homey environment where the entire neighborhood converges, literally, to get a taste. Located at the chaotic intersection of Fruitvale Avenue and San Leandro Street, the restaurant is tucked in between an industrial railroad crossing, a busy highway overpass, a bustling BART station, and two Mexican restaurants. It’s surprisingly easy to miss. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But if you close your eyes and inhale, you’ll only smell one thing: racks of meat being smoked daily. Follow that scent, and you’ll see why everyone is lining up.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">During my recent weeknight visit, I noticed an Asian family, a group of middle-aged Black women, a Mexican couple, teenage Pacific Islanders, and a squad of white city cowboys wearing their hats, boots and belt buckles. Everyone was enjoying the warm backdoor patio and the Mexican music from the bar next door, all while grubbing on group-sized portions of barbecued goodness. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was so busy that I felt guilty for interrupting the husband-and-wife team to ask questions, since they were the sole employees running the show. They even had two of their kids with them that day, who were reading and had built a fort in the corner. But like true Bay Area hustlers, the family made it look as effortless as a Steph Curry three-pointer in the 4th quarter. That’s because for Mcelligott, struggle and sacrifice are nothing new.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I put everything into this. Did you see the billboard on 880 in front of the Coliseum? I put that up because I wanted everyone in my family to see what I was doing for us,” he says, referencing the massive advertisement he purchased when Ruby Q first opened. “Everybody can see that.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13896428\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13896428\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_window-800x533.jpg\" alt='Writing in the restaurant window reads, \"Seafood Gumbo,\" \"Loaded Nachos,\" \"Smoked While You Sleep,\" \"BBQ,\" and \"Open Patio.\"' width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_window-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_window-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_window-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_window-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_window-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_window-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_window-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The restaurant’s window advertises barbecue “smoked while you sleep.” \u003ccite>(Briana Chazaro)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__dropcapShortcode__dropcap\">M\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>celligott’s vision began when he was a teenager growing up in East Oakland. His parents would send him to stay with his relatives in South Lake Tahoe every summer because he would “get into too much trouble” in his neighborhood. It was during those summer months away from the Bay that Mcelligott learned first-hand about his family’s barbecue business. Each year, he’d spend time working for his uncle, who ran Womack’s BBQ for over 40 years. But it was Mcelligott’s grandpa who opened the place in 1979 after helping to launch one of San Francisco’s most iconic barbecue restaurants, \u003ca href=\"http://newfillmore.com/fillmore-classics/leon-was-the-king-of-barbecue/\">Leon’s, in the Fillmore District\u003c/a>.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Between learning how to prepare chicken from expert grill masters, picking out the right types of wood to burn to get that variety of layered, smoky flavors, marinating ribs all day, and also regularly interacting with customers, Mcelligott began to steep himself in the saucy world of barbecue—then eventually added his own flair to the fire.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Working in restaurants was a switch for Mcelligott, who had spent most of his youth playing baseball and other sports. He held onto hopes of going professional until he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2012, forcing him to give up sports at age 23. After six months of chemotherapy, Mcelligott overcame his illness. Rather than being discouraged, he shifted toward a career in his other life’s passion: barbecue.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mcelligott knew he wanted to do something positive for himself—and for his family and community—and after enrolling in Le Cordón Bleu at San Francisco, his hope of bringing a family restaurant to Oakland became a reality.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At this point in our meal, I’d eaten through a delectable portion of mac and cheese, candied beans, a rack of soft ribs, more pulled pork, and everyone’s favorite, a quarter-pound of tender brisket. Between me and a small group of hungry friends, we couldn’t finish it all—which is impressive, considering the relatively low price we paid.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13896424\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13896424\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_Reuben-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_Reuben-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_Reuben-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_Reuben-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_Reuben-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_Reuben-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_Reuben-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/RubyQ_Reuben-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Decorations reflect Mcelligott’s love of sports, skating and hip hop. Rodriguez, his wife, was too busy to be photographed. \u003ccite>(Briana Chazaro)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mcelligott was energetic and upbeat after an entire day’s shift, and throughout our conversation, he was all smiles and laughs. His spirit is radiant and genuinely soulful, like the playfully-decorated walls of his restaurant and the creative family recipes he uses. “This is everything I love,” Mcelligott says. His kids interrupt us with jokes, and he picks up the smallest one. I feel like a longtime friend visiting his home.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Though it wasn’t easy to launch a restaurant amidst a pandemic, Mcelligott tells me, business has been going well, and he and Rodriguez don’t foresee any slow-down. With its mixture of original barbecue recipes, Mexican fusion, Southern hospitality and a vibrant Bay Area energy that reflects the spirit of the neighborhood, Ruby Q Smoke Fusion is more than a place to get your favorite half-rack of ribs and homemade peach cobbler. It’s a place where you will find East Oakland still sustaining itself, and where you know you’ll be welcomed no matter what time it is, even when there is no food left to serve that day because it’s already been eaten.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12904247\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"39\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-160x16.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-240x23.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-375x37.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://rubyqsmokefusion.com/\">Ruby Q Smoke Fusion\u003c/a> is open at 954 Fruitvale Blvd. in Oakland Wednesday through Saturday, noon–8pm, and Sunday, 1–8pm.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Low Bar, Oakland’s New Chicano Bar, Takes Off After a Yearlong Delay",
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"content": "\u003cp>When Matthew Meyer and Daniel Paez first announced their plans for \u003ca href=\"https://www.lowbaroakland.com/\">Low Bar\u003c/a> early last year, the Chicano-owned bar was hailed as part of \u003ca href=\"https://sf.eater.com/21311059/oakland-black-latinx-bipoc-bars-sobre-mesa-low-bar-oeste-pican\">a new wave of craft cocktail bars\u003c/a> in Oakland that centered the experiences of people of color. Then, of course, the pandemic hit, and everything ground to a halt. Low Bar was one of countless local watering holes that either shut down entirely or had their openings placed in protracted limbo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Happy news, then, for those who have been waiting: About a month ago, Low Bar quietly opened at 2300 Webster Street (the former Hawker Fare space) with both food and cocktail menus that proudly reflect the owners’ Mexican American backgrounds: quesabirria tacos, plenty of creative agave cocktails, and an ingenious Mexican twist on a Scotch egg. For now, the bar is open Thursday through Sunday for both indoor and outdoor service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I feel like COVID obviously put a huge damper and was a momentum buster for everyone,” says Meyer. “But if you’re asking if bars owned by people of color are going to slow down: Absolutely not. As a Chicano, I’ve never been more proud.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-13896245\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/lowbar_neon-800x416.jpg\" alt='Three cocktails glow red in front of a neon sign that reads \"Low Bar.\"' width=\"800\" height=\"416\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/lowbar_neon-800x416.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/lowbar_neon-160x83.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/lowbar_neon-768x400.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/lowbar_neon.jpg 890w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If there was a time when Oakland’s booming bar scene was regarded as \u003ca href=\"https://eastbayexpress.com/oaklands-dive-bar-aficionados-adapt-to-the-citys-changing-bar-scene-2-1/\">the purview of white hipsters\u003c/a>, by early last year that characterization had increasingly started to feel like it no longer applied. As \u003ca href=\"https://sf.eater.com/21311059/oakland-black-latinx-bipoc-bars-sobre-mesa-low-bar-oeste-pican\">Eater SF\u003c/a> first noted, within a span of a few months, several prominent, upscale-ish, POC-owned spots opened with diverse staffing and serious cocktail programs that reflected their owners’ cultural backgrounds—and all within a few city blocks. Before COVID hit, \u003ca href=\"https://sf.eater.com/2020/2/3/21119819/viridian-uptown-oakland-bar-cocktails-desserts-asian-photos\">Viridian was trumpeting its uniquely Asian American identity\u003c/a> as a cocktail bar, slinging Portuguese egg tarts and sublime drinks inspired by Chinese-American dishes like a tomato beef stir-fry. And \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/bayareabites/136410/sobre-mesa-brings-afro-caribbean-cocktails-and-light-bites-to-oakland\">Sobre Mesa had a whole Afro-Latino lounge vibe going\u003c/a>, with a deep rum lineup and a small plates menu that drew inspiration from across the African diaspora.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID='bayareabites_136410' label='Also on the Bar Front']Both of those bars are back up and running now that COVID-related restrictions have started to loosen. For Low Bar, the past year has mostly been a matter of survival, Meyer explains. Investors pulled out, and, unable to finish the build-out of the bar, Meyer and Paez had to pivot to doing a burrito and tamale pop-up called \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/chanchos_oakland/?hl=en\">Chancho’s\u003c/a> just to keep some revenue coming in. In fact, Meyer says, it was Chancho’s partnership with \u003ca href=\"https://wck.org/\">World Central Kitchen\u003c/a>, celebrity chef José Andrés’ disaster relief organization, that ultimately saved them, paying Chancho’s to provide meals for people in need during the pandemic. “We haven’t missed a single week since July,” Meyer says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As POC-owned, POC-focused craft cocktail bars have become more normalized in Oakland, it’s allowed folks like Meyer and Paez to be a little bit more expansive in the way they define what it means to be, say, a “Chicano bar.” For Meyer, who is Low Bar’s chef, that means he’s put together a \u003ca href=\"https://www.lowbaroakland.com/menus\">food menu\u003c/a> that’s a little less traditional than the old-school burritos and tamales he was serving through Chancho’s. He describes it as “Mexican-ish American bar food,” heavily influenced by his own upbringing near the border of San Diego and Tijuana. Yes, he makes a version of quesabirria, the cheesy birria tacos that are easily \u003ca href=\"https://sf.eater.com/2019/11/21/20937687/el-garage-quesabirria-birria-taco-richmond-instagram\">Tijuana’s most famous culinary export of the moment\u003c/a>. But he also serves a number of dishes that are reflective of the border city’s vibrant fusion food scene: a cheeseburger with salsa verde and, perhaps most notably, a play on a Scotch egg that consists of chorizo coated in ground-up tortilla chips before it gets deep-fried.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.instagram.com/p/COA5hbDhQQp/\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Paez puts it, “The concept of Mexican food is no longer defined by just a taqueria.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the cocktail front, Paez describes his approach as “low pressure, low stakes, high reward,” with a strong emphasis on all the classics—your negronis and old fashioneds and daiquiris—but also plenty of creative agave and tequila drinks, as befits a Chicano bar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Meyer and Paez, if anything has changed in the past five or 10 years, it’s that bar and restaurant patrons in the Bay Area are now actively seeking out different kinds of cultural experiences. “People are more excited about trying new flavors and traditional dishes from people’s backgrounds,” Meyer says. “I’m thrilled to be a part of it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12904247\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"39\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-160x16.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-240x23.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-375x37.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Low Bar is open for both indoor and outdoor dining and drinking at 2300 Webster Street, Thursday through Sunday from 3–10pm.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>When Matthew Meyer and Daniel Paez first announced their plans for \u003ca href=\"https://www.lowbaroakland.com/\">Low Bar\u003c/a> early last year, the Chicano-owned bar was hailed as part of \u003ca href=\"https://sf.eater.com/21311059/oakland-black-latinx-bipoc-bars-sobre-mesa-low-bar-oeste-pican\">a new wave of craft cocktail bars\u003c/a> in Oakland that centered the experiences of people of color. Then, of course, the pandemic hit, and everything ground to a halt. Low Bar was one of countless local watering holes that either shut down entirely or had their openings placed in protracted limbo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Happy news, then, for those who have been waiting: About a month ago, Low Bar quietly opened at 2300 Webster Street (the former Hawker Fare space) with both food and cocktail menus that proudly reflect the owners’ Mexican American backgrounds: quesabirria tacos, plenty of creative agave cocktails, and an ingenious Mexican twist on a Scotch egg. For now, the bar is open Thursday through Sunday for both indoor and outdoor service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I feel like COVID obviously put a huge damper and was a momentum buster for everyone,” says Meyer. “But if you’re asking if bars owned by people of color are going to slow down: Absolutely not. As a Chicano, I’ve never been more proud.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-13896245\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/lowbar_neon-800x416.jpg\" alt='Three cocktails glow red in front of a neon sign that reads \"Low Bar.\"' width=\"800\" height=\"416\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/lowbar_neon-800x416.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/lowbar_neon-160x83.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/lowbar_neon-768x400.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/lowbar_neon.jpg 890w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If there was a time when Oakland’s booming bar scene was regarded as \u003ca href=\"https://eastbayexpress.com/oaklands-dive-bar-aficionados-adapt-to-the-citys-changing-bar-scene-2-1/\">the purview of white hipsters\u003c/a>, by early last year that characterization had increasingly started to feel like it no longer applied. As \u003ca href=\"https://sf.eater.com/21311059/oakland-black-latinx-bipoc-bars-sobre-mesa-low-bar-oeste-pican\">Eater SF\u003c/a> first noted, within a span of a few months, several prominent, upscale-ish, POC-owned spots opened with diverse staffing and serious cocktail programs that reflected their owners’ cultural backgrounds—and all within a few city blocks. Before COVID hit, \u003ca href=\"https://sf.eater.com/2020/2/3/21119819/viridian-uptown-oakland-bar-cocktails-desserts-asian-photos\">Viridian was trumpeting its uniquely Asian American identity\u003c/a> as a cocktail bar, slinging Portuguese egg tarts and sublime drinks inspired by Chinese-American dishes like a tomato beef stir-fry. And \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/bayareabites/136410/sobre-mesa-brings-afro-caribbean-cocktails-and-light-bites-to-oakland\">Sobre Mesa had a whole Afro-Latino lounge vibe going\u003c/a>, with a deep rum lineup and a small plates menu that drew inspiration from across the African diaspora.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Both of those bars are back up and running now that COVID-related restrictions have started to loosen. For Low Bar, the past year has mostly been a matter of survival, Meyer explains. Investors pulled out, and, unable to finish the build-out of the bar, Meyer and Paez had to pivot to doing a burrito and tamale pop-up called \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/chanchos_oakland/?hl=en\">Chancho’s\u003c/a> just to keep some revenue coming in. In fact, Meyer says, it was Chancho’s partnership with \u003ca href=\"https://wck.org/\">World Central Kitchen\u003c/a>, celebrity chef José Andrés’ disaster relief organization, that ultimately saved them, paying Chancho’s to provide meals for people in need during the pandemic. “We haven’t missed a single week since July,” Meyer says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As POC-owned, POC-focused craft cocktail bars have become more normalized in Oakland, it’s allowed folks like Meyer and Paez to be a little bit more expansive in the way they define what it means to be, say, a “Chicano bar.” For Meyer, who is Low Bar’s chef, that means he’s put together a \u003ca href=\"https://www.lowbaroakland.com/menus\">food menu\u003c/a> that’s a little less traditional than the old-school burritos and tamales he was serving through Chancho’s. He describes it as “Mexican-ish American bar food,” heavily influenced by his own upbringing near the border of San Diego and Tijuana. Yes, he makes a version of quesabirria, the cheesy birria tacos that are easily \u003ca href=\"https://sf.eater.com/2019/11/21/20937687/el-garage-quesabirria-birria-taco-richmond-instagram\">Tijuana’s most famous culinary export of the moment\u003c/a>. But he also serves a number of dishes that are reflective of the border city’s vibrant fusion food scene: a cheeseburger with salsa verde and, perhaps most notably, a play on a Scotch egg that consists of chorizo coated in ground-up tortilla chips before it gets deep-fried.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>As Paez puts it, “The concept of Mexican food is no longer defined by just a taqueria.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the cocktail front, Paez describes his approach as “low pressure, low stakes, high reward,” with a strong emphasis on all the classics—your negronis and old fashioneds and daiquiris—but also plenty of creative agave and tequila drinks, as befits a Chicano bar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Meyer and Paez, if anything has changed in the past five or 10 years, it’s that bar and restaurant patrons in the Bay Area are now actively seeking out different kinds of cultural experiences. “People are more excited about trying new flavors and traditional dishes from people’s backgrounds,” Meyer says. “I’m thrilled to be a part of it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12904247\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"39\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-160x16.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-240x23.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-375x37.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Low Bar is open for both indoor and outdoor dining and drinking at 2300 Webster Street, Thursday through Sunday from 3–10pm.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Everybody’s Favorite 24-Hour Filipino Bakery Has Finally Reopened",
"headTitle": "Everybody’s Favorite 24-Hour Filipino Bakery Has Finally Reopened | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>There isn’t any place quite like \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/lingnamstarbread/\">Ling Nam Starbread\u003c/a>. For the three decades that the Filipino restaurant-bakery held court at its strip mall location near the border of South San Francisco and Daly City, it was everybody’s favorite late-night pit stop—a place where night owls and early risers could stop in for a bowl of noodles or hot rice porridge or, especially, a box of the pillowy, piping hot deliciousness known as señorita bread. On Fridays and Saturdays, the bakery was open 24 hours, making it a popular first stop for hungry travelers stumbling off a late-arriving flight at SFO.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/B_IzSODpXga/\">Until last April\u003c/a>, that is, when the restaurant-bakery closed its doors with promises to reopen soon at a new location just a mile up the hill. Naturally, COVID put a wrench on those plans, and so the business stayed closed until just last Friday, when the new Ling Nam Starbread storefront at 980 King Drive in Daly City finally opened—a cause for celebration within the area’s vibrant Filipino American community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[aside postID='arts_13896069,arts_13895488' label='More From KQED Food']\u003c/span>“We had an overwhelming turnout,” says Alexson Lim, who runs the restaurant along with his father Tony Lim and his brother Brandon Lim, noting the long lines they had through much of the weekend. Late-night customers will need to wait a little longer: For the time being, the bakery is keeping reduced hours, closing up shop at 9pm each night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For those who haven’t yet had the pleasure, Starbread is best known for its señorita bread, a kind of sweet, yeasty roll that’s layered with sugar and melted margarine and—this is key—is always boxed up hot right out of the oven.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13896140\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13896140\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/Starbread_senorita-800x1067.jpg\" alt=\"A hand holding up a piece of bread in front of a sign with the Starbread logo. of se\" width=\"800\" height=\"1067\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/Starbread_senorita-800x1067.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/Starbread_senorita-1020x1360.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/Starbread_senorita-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/Starbread_senorita-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/Starbread_senorita-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/Starbread_senorita-1536x2048.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/Starbread_senorita-scaled.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The sweet, buttery insides of the señorita bread. \u003ccite>(Ling Nam Starbread)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://sanfran.com/senorita-bread-carb-addiction-waiting-happen\">bread has made Starbread a local icon\u003c/a>. For Filipino families in particular, boxes of hot señorita bread are a staple at almost any big family gathering or celebration, and the chain has a strong cult following among non-Filipinos as well. The bakery has at least a dozen locations spread across Northern California, almost all of which boast long lines from morning to night. But none of the other Starbread locations were late-night destinations the way the Ling Nam combo shop was. And none of them were located in Daly City, which boasts the \u003ca href=\"https://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=DALY_CITY:_THE_NEW_FILIPINOTOWN#:~:text=At%2027%20percent%20of%20the,of%20Metro%20Manila's%20Quezon%20City.\">highest concentration of Filipinos in the U.S.\u003c/a> (The closest other Starbread shop is in Pacifica.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[aside postID='bayareabites_133626' label='More Filipino Eats']\u003c/span>The fact that the restaurant and bakery closed last April, just weeks after the initial shelter-in-place order, was mostly a matter of coincidence, Lim explains. The restaurant’s 30-year lease had just expired, and the entire lot was sold. (It’s now being turned into a \u003ca href=\"https://www.smdailyjournal.com/news/local/mercedes-benz-rolls-into-south-san-francisco/article_d167b2b6-c001-11ea-9328-1bd1e3bff343.html\">Mercedes-Benz dealership\u003c/a>.) Even though the Lims were able to secure a new location right away, it was a former dentist’s office that required a full build-out—a process that dragged out for almost a full year due to pandemic-related construction and permitting delays.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even before it added the Starbread kiosk to the front of the restaurant in 2009, Ling Nam Noodle Shop was a local institution going on two decades. The restaurant specialized in Chinese-Filipino cuisine, which is to say Chinese dishes like wonton noodles, steamed buns, and rice porridge that were made to cater to Filipino tastes. For families like the Lims—ethnic Chinese who had settled in the Philippines—these were deeply nostalgic dishes. As Lim explains, they were dishes that made first-generation Filipino immigrants who frequented the restaurant say, “That’s home.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13896143\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13896143\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/Starbread_menu-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"The Starbread menu, with señorita bread priced at 10 pieces for $5, 20 pieces for $10, etc.\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/Starbread_menu-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/Starbread_menu-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/Starbread_menu-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/Starbread_menu-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/Starbread_menu-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/Starbread_menu-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/Starbread_menu-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The menu. \u003ccite>(Ling Nam Starbread)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For the time being, however, only the bakery is open. The Ling Nam part of the business, now located in a separate storefront next door, is still under construction and will likely open in the early summer, Lim says. (There’s also a second Ling Nam Starbread location, in Tracy, that’s owned by the Lims—but there, too, the bakery is the only part of the business that’s stayed open.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These days, of course, the Starbread is probably the biggest draw anyway—especially since it was the only place in the Bay Area where the bleary-eyed could score a batch of hot señorita bread at, say, 3am on a Saturday night. Eventually, once nightlife and air travel (including late-night travel) go back to pre-pandemic levels, Lim expects to once again resume that 24-hour weekend schedule.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Why not?” he says. “It’s what we’re known for.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12904247\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"39\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-160x16.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-240x23.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-375x37.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Ling Nam Starbread is open at its new location at 980 King Drive in Daly City from 5:30am–9pm daily. For now, only the bakery storefront is open.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>There isn’t any place quite like \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/lingnamstarbread/\">Ling Nam Starbread\u003c/a>. For the three decades that the Filipino restaurant-bakery held court at its strip mall location near the border of South San Francisco and Daly City, it was everybody’s favorite late-night pit stop—a place where night owls and early risers could stop in for a bowl of noodles or hot rice porridge or, especially, a box of the pillowy, piping hot deliciousness known as señorita bread. On Fridays and Saturdays, the bakery was open 24 hours, making it a popular first stop for hungry travelers stumbling off a late-arriving flight at SFO.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/B_IzSODpXga/\">Until last April\u003c/a>, that is, when the restaurant-bakery closed its doors with promises to reopen soon at a new location just a mile up the hill. Naturally, COVID put a wrench on those plans, and so the business stayed closed until just last Friday, when the new Ling Nam Starbread storefront at 980 King Drive in Daly City finally opened—a cause for celebration within the area’s vibrant Filipino American community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/span>“We had an overwhelming turnout,” says Alexson Lim, who runs the restaurant along with his father Tony Lim and his brother Brandon Lim, noting the long lines they had through much of the weekend. Late-night customers will need to wait a little longer: For the time being, the bakery is keeping reduced hours, closing up shop at 9pm each night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For those who haven’t yet had the pleasure, Starbread is best known for its señorita bread, a kind of sweet, yeasty roll that’s layered with sugar and melted margarine and—this is key—is always boxed up hot right out of the oven.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13896140\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13896140\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/Starbread_senorita-800x1067.jpg\" alt=\"A hand holding up a piece of bread in front of a sign with the Starbread logo. of se\" width=\"800\" height=\"1067\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/Starbread_senorita-800x1067.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/Starbread_senorita-1020x1360.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/Starbread_senorita-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/Starbread_senorita-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/Starbread_senorita-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/Starbread_senorita-1536x2048.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/Starbread_senorita-scaled.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The sweet, buttery insides of the señorita bread. \u003ccite>(Ling Nam Starbread)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://sanfran.com/senorita-bread-carb-addiction-waiting-happen\">bread has made Starbread a local icon\u003c/a>. For Filipino families in particular, boxes of hot señorita bread are a staple at almost any big family gathering or celebration, and the chain has a strong cult following among non-Filipinos as well. The bakery has at least a dozen locations spread across Northern California, almost all of which boast long lines from morning to night. But none of the other Starbread locations were late-night destinations the way the Ling Nam combo shop was. And none of them were located in Daly City, which boasts the \u003ca href=\"https://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=DALY_CITY:_THE_NEW_FILIPINOTOWN#:~:text=At%2027%20percent%20of%20the,of%20Metro%20Manila's%20Quezon%20City.\">highest concentration of Filipinos in the U.S.\u003c/a> (The closest other Starbread shop is in Pacifica.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/span>The fact that the restaurant and bakery closed last April, just weeks after the initial shelter-in-place order, was mostly a matter of coincidence, Lim explains. The restaurant’s 30-year lease had just expired, and the entire lot was sold. (It’s now being turned into a \u003ca href=\"https://www.smdailyjournal.com/news/local/mercedes-benz-rolls-into-south-san-francisco/article_d167b2b6-c001-11ea-9328-1bd1e3bff343.html\">Mercedes-Benz dealership\u003c/a>.) Even though the Lims were able to secure a new location right away, it was a former dentist’s office that required a full build-out—a process that dragged out for almost a full year due to pandemic-related construction and permitting delays.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even before it added the Starbread kiosk to the front of the restaurant in 2009, Ling Nam Noodle Shop was a local institution going on two decades. The restaurant specialized in Chinese-Filipino cuisine, which is to say Chinese dishes like wonton noodles, steamed buns, and rice porridge that were made to cater to Filipino tastes. For families like the Lims—ethnic Chinese who had settled in the Philippines—these were deeply nostalgic dishes. As Lim explains, they were dishes that made first-generation Filipino immigrants who frequented the restaurant say, “That’s home.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13896143\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13896143\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/Starbread_menu-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"The Starbread menu, with señorita bread priced at 10 pieces for $5, 20 pieces for $10, etc.\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/Starbread_menu-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/Starbread_menu-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/Starbread_menu-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/Starbread_menu-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/Starbread_menu-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/Starbread_menu-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/Starbread_menu-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The menu. \u003ccite>(Ling Nam Starbread)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For the time being, however, only the bakery is open. The Ling Nam part of the business, now located in a separate storefront next door, is still under construction and will likely open in the early summer, Lim says. (There’s also a second Ling Nam Starbread location, in Tracy, that’s owned by the Lims—but there, too, the bakery is the only part of the business that’s stayed open.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These days, of course, the Starbread is probably the biggest draw anyway—especially since it was the only place in the Bay Area where the bleary-eyed could score a batch of hot señorita bread at, say, 3am on a Saturday night. Eventually, once nightlife and air travel (including late-night travel) go back to pre-pandemic levels, Lim expects to once again resume that 24-hour weekend schedule.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Why not?” he says. “It’s what we’re known for.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12904247\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"39\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-160x16.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-240x23.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39-375x37.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Ling Nam Starbread is open at its new location at 980 King Drive in Daly City from 5:30am–9pm daily. For now, only the bakery storefront is open.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Missing Travel? This 'Irreverent Guide' Visits Anthony Bourdain's Favorite Places",
"headTitle": "Missing Travel? This ‘Irreverent Guide’ Visits Anthony Bourdain’s Favorite Places | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>The new book \u003cem>World Travel: An Irreverent Guide\u003c/em> is credited to Anthony Bourdain. But it was not really written by the bestselling author, chef and TV personality who \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/06/08/618185381/anthony-bourdain-chef-and-television-host-has-died-at-61\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">died in 2018.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>World Travel: An Irreverent Guide\u003c/em> was assembled by one of Bourdain’s associates, Laurie Woolever, based entirely on his previous writings and an hourlong interview conducted shortly before his death. Bourdain had collaborated with Woolever on 2016’s \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/10/27/499308031/in-appetites-bourdain-pleases-the-toughest-food-critic-his-9-year-old\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Appetites: A Cookbook\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, and this project was conceived of shortly thereafter, she says, with the intent to spotlight some of Bourdain’s favorite places around the globe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Given the dearth of original writing by Bourdain himself, \u003cem>World Travel\u003c/em> contains a handful of tributary essays, by the likes of Bourdain’s brother Christopher, music producer Steve Albini, and Nari Kye, who worked as a production manager on Bourdain’s TV show, \u003cem>No Reservations\u003c/em>. She describes, in her essay, how her former boss profoundly changed her life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13896117\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13896117\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/worldtravel-hc-c_custom-f40d26228021e9447e177289b70023282a4da1da-800x1208.jpg\" alt=\"The cover of 'World Travel: An Irreverent Guide' by Anthony Bourdain and Laurie Woolever.\" width=\"800\" height=\"1208\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/worldtravel-hc-c_custom-f40d26228021e9447e177289b70023282a4da1da-800x1208.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/worldtravel-hc-c_custom-f40d26228021e9447e177289b70023282a4da1da-1020x1541.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/worldtravel-hc-c_custom-f40d26228021e9447e177289b70023282a4da1da-160x242.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/worldtravel-hc-c_custom-f40d26228021e9447e177289b70023282a4da1da-768x1160.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/worldtravel-hc-c_custom-f40d26228021e9447e177289b70023282a4da1da-1017x1536.jpg 1017w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/worldtravel-hc-c_custom-f40d26228021e9447e177289b70023282a4da1da-1356x2048.jpg 1356w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/worldtravel-hc-c_custom-f40d26228021e9447e177289b70023282a4da1da-scaled.jpg 1695w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">‘World Travel: An Irreverent Guide’ by Anthony Bourdain and Laurie Woolever. \u003ccite>(Ecco)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The South Korea episode of \u003cem>No Reservations\u003c/em> started as a joke,” she writes. “At the end of Season 1, I said, ‘We’re all going to eat Korean barbecue, and drink lots of \u003cem>soju\u003c/em>.’ I got us a huge table in Manhattan’s K-town, and Tony came. We went outside to smoke, and in my drunken \u003cem>soju\u003c/em> haze, I said, ‘Tony, you have to swear you’re going to Korea.’ And he said, ‘Of course. And you have to come with me.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What happened after that drunken conversation was not a joke, Kye says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s hard not to get emotional when I talk about Tony,” she says, wiping away tears during a Zoom call from her Brooklyn home. Kye explains she was surprised not just to come along for the South Korea episode, which aired in 2006, but also to be its focus, along with her family there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The show follows Kye and Bourdain as they explore Seoul’s famous Noryangjin fish market, visit a village famous for its kimchee, peer at soldiers guarding the DMZ and drink copiously at a karaoke bar. (Off-camera, Kye says, Bourdain performed a Billy Idol number.) The two sat down with Kye’s grandfather over a bowl of spicy fish stew as part of the episode. He described the trauma of escaping from his home in what’s now North Korea in 1951.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='news_11673893']“If I could go back there once before I die,” her grandfather explains in Korean, “I would have no other wish, if I could just see my parents’ graves and just cry my heart out. There’s nothing that can be done, though. That’s just the way it is. That’s my fate.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kye and Bourdain listen, rapt. “I might not have learned these things had it not been [for] Tony and the show,” Kye mused to NPR. “I was one person before I made the show. I was a different person afterwards.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As she recounts in her essay, Kye did not grow up feeling proud of her family’s history or culture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I moved to the States when I was 5, from Korea, and after that, I lived in a predominantly white, Anglo-American community,” she writes. “As a kid who already looked different from everyone else, I was trying to fit in as an American and was mortified by my Korean heritage. My mom cooked only Korean food. My parents spoke only Korean to me … We basically lived in Korea in our house in a very American town.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before Kye’s friends would come over—”white, blond-haired girls named Jenny and Erin who would wear shoes inside their houses”—she would hide everything in her house that looked Korean. She was a recent college graduate, still in her early 20s, when she traveled to South Korea with Bourdain. His full-throated enthusiasm for Korea’s spectacular history, culture and food transformed her perspective about something she had dismissed and taken for granted—and ignited her own sense of creative potential. Now Kye works on a children’s television show for Korean American families, and she’s writing an autobiographical screenplay, including her travels with Bourdain, filtered through learning about food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13896118\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13896118\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/hireswooleverandbourdain.credit-cnn-2c276a8ec17dbd88f34dc28e5eaea98bec9019f3-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"Laurie Woolever and Anthony Bourdain at the Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens, N.Y. \" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/hireswooleverandbourdain.credit-cnn-2c276a8ec17dbd88f34dc28e5eaea98bec9019f3-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/hireswooleverandbourdain.credit-cnn-2c276a8ec17dbd88f34dc28e5eaea98bec9019f3-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/hireswooleverandbourdain.credit-cnn-2c276a8ec17dbd88f34dc28e5eaea98bec9019f3-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/hireswooleverandbourdain.credit-cnn-2c276a8ec17dbd88f34dc28e5eaea98bec9019f3-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/hireswooleverandbourdain.credit-cnn-2c276a8ec17dbd88f34dc28e5eaea98bec9019f3-1536x1153.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/hireswooleverandbourdain.credit-cnn-2c276a8ec17dbd88f34dc28e5eaea98bec9019f3.jpg 1547w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Laurie Woolever and Anthony Bourdain at the Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens, N.Y. \u003ccite>(CNN/Ecco)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I didn’t know this had been so important to Nari until after [Bourdain] died, and we were talking about his impact on us,” Laurie Woolever told NPR. “Had Tony lived and written his own essay for the book—which was the original plan—I never would’ve gotten to hear from Nari. And I think it’s important, and I want people to understand how deep [Bourdain’s] legacy is.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Part of that legacy, says Nari Kye, comes from how Bourdain reflexively stood up for underdogs, his embrace of those who get marginalized. “He always made people feel like they belonged,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And wherever he traveled, she says, Anthony Bourdain managed to belong as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Missing+Travel%3F+This+%27Irreverent+Guide%27+Visits+Anthony+Bourdain%27s+Favorite+Places&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The new book \u003cem>World Travel: An Irreverent Guide\u003c/em> is credited to Anthony Bourdain. But it was not really written by the bestselling author, chef and TV personality who \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/06/08/618185381/anthony-bourdain-chef-and-television-host-has-died-at-61\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">died in 2018.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>World Travel: An Irreverent Guide\u003c/em> was assembled by one of Bourdain’s associates, Laurie Woolever, based entirely on his previous writings and an hourlong interview conducted shortly before his death. Bourdain had collaborated with Woolever on 2016’s \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/10/27/499308031/in-appetites-bourdain-pleases-the-toughest-food-critic-his-9-year-old\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Appetites: A Cookbook\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, and this project was conceived of shortly thereafter, she says, with the intent to spotlight some of Bourdain’s favorite places around the globe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Given the dearth of original writing by Bourdain himself, \u003cem>World Travel\u003c/em> contains a handful of tributary essays, by the likes of Bourdain’s brother Christopher, music producer Steve Albini, and Nari Kye, who worked as a production manager on Bourdain’s TV show, \u003cem>No Reservations\u003c/em>. She describes, in her essay, how her former boss profoundly changed her life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13896117\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13896117\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/worldtravel-hc-c_custom-f40d26228021e9447e177289b70023282a4da1da-800x1208.jpg\" alt=\"The cover of 'World Travel: An Irreverent Guide' by Anthony Bourdain and Laurie Woolever.\" width=\"800\" height=\"1208\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/worldtravel-hc-c_custom-f40d26228021e9447e177289b70023282a4da1da-800x1208.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/worldtravel-hc-c_custom-f40d26228021e9447e177289b70023282a4da1da-1020x1541.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/worldtravel-hc-c_custom-f40d26228021e9447e177289b70023282a4da1da-160x242.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/worldtravel-hc-c_custom-f40d26228021e9447e177289b70023282a4da1da-768x1160.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/worldtravel-hc-c_custom-f40d26228021e9447e177289b70023282a4da1da-1017x1536.jpg 1017w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/worldtravel-hc-c_custom-f40d26228021e9447e177289b70023282a4da1da-1356x2048.jpg 1356w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/worldtravel-hc-c_custom-f40d26228021e9447e177289b70023282a4da1da-scaled.jpg 1695w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">‘World Travel: An Irreverent Guide’ by Anthony Bourdain and Laurie Woolever. \u003ccite>(Ecco)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The South Korea episode of \u003cem>No Reservations\u003c/em> started as a joke,” she writes. “At the end of Season 1, I said, ‘We’re all going to eat Korean barbecue, and drink lots of \u003cem>soju\u003c/em>.’ I got us a huge table in Manhattan’s K-town, and Tony came. We went outside to smoke, and in my drunken \u003cem>soju\u003c/em> haze, I said, ‘Tony, you have to swear you’re going to Korea.’ And he said, ‘Of course. And you have to come with me.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What happened after that drunken conversation was not a joke, Kye says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“If I could go back there once before I die,” her grandfather explains in Korean, “I would have no other wish, if I could just see my parents’ graves and just cry my heart out. There’s nothing that can be done, though. That’s just the way it is. That’s my fate.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kye and Bourdain listen, rapt. “I might not have learned these things had it not been [for] Tony and the show,” Kye mused to NPR. “I was one person before I made the show. I was a different person afterwards.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As she recounts in her essay, Kye did not grow up feeling proud of her family’s history or culture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I moved to the States when I was 5, from Korea, and after that, I lived in a predominantly white, Anglo-American community,” she writes. “As a kid who already looked different from everyone else, I was trying to fit in as an American and was mortified by my Korean heritage. My mom cooked only Korean food. My parents spoke only Korean to me … We basically lived in Korea in our house in a very American town.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before Kye’s friends would come over—”white, blond-haired girls named Jenny and Erin who would wear shoes inside their houses”—she would hide everything in her house that looked Korean. She was a recent college graduate, still in her early 20s, when she traveled to South Korea with Bourdain. His full-throated enthusiasm for Korea’s spectacular history, culture and food transformed her perspective about something she had dismissed and taken for granted—and ignited her own sense of creative potential. Now Kye works on a children’s television show for Korean American families, and she’s writing an autobiographical screenplay, including her travels with Bourdain, filtered through learning about food.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13896118\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13896118\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/hireswooleverandbourdain.credit-cnn-2c276a8ec17dbd88f34dc28e5eaea98bec9019f3-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"Laurie Woolever and Anthony Bourdain at the Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens, N.Y. \" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/hireswooleverandbourdain.credit-cnn-2c276a8ec17dbd88f34dc28e5eaea98bec9019f3-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/hireswooleverandbourdain.credit-cnn-2c276a8ec17dbd88f34dc28e5eaea98bec9019f3-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/hireswooleverandbourdain.credit-cnn-2c276a8ec17dbd88f34dc28e5eaea98bec9019f3-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/hireswooleverandbourdain.credit-cnn-2c276a8ec17dbd88f34dc28e5eaea98bec9019f3-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/hireswooleverandbourdain.credit-cnn-2c276a8ec17dbd88f34dc28e5eaea98bec9019f3-1536x1153.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/hireswooleverandbourdain.credit-cnn-2c276a8ec17dbd88f34dc28e5eaea98bec9019f3.jpg 1547w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Laurie Woolever and Anthony Bourdain at the Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens, N.Y. \u003ccite>(CNN/Ecco)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I didn’t know this had been so important to Nari until after [Bourdain] died, and we were talking about his impact on us,” Laurie Woolever told NPR. “Had Tony lived and written his own essay for the book—which was the original plan—I never would’ve gotten to hear from Nari. And I think it’s important, and I want people to understand how deep [Bourdain’s] legacy is.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Part of that legacy, says Nari Kye, comes from how Bourdain reflexively stood up for underdogs, his embrace of those who get marginalized. “He always made people feel like they belonged,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And wherever he traveled, she says, Anthony Bourdain managed to belong as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Missing+Travel%3F+This+%27Irreverent+Guide%27+Visits+Anthony+Bourdain%27s+Favorite+Places&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"tagline": "The flip side of gentrification, told through one town",
"info": "Gentrification is changing cities across America, forcing people from neighborhoods they have long called home. Call them the displaced. Now those priced out of the Bay Area are looking for a better life in an unlikely place. American Suburb follows this migration to one California town along the Delta, 45 miles from San Francisco. But is this once sleepy suburb ready for them?",
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"tagline": "Exploring the Bay Area, one question at a time",
"info": "KQED’s new podcast, Bay Curious, gets to the bottom of the mysteries — both profound and peculiar — that give the Bay Area its unique identity. And we’ll do it with your help! You ask the questions. You decide what Bay Curious investigates. And you join us on the journey to find the answers.",
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"info": "KQED’s statewide radio news program providing daily coverage of issues, trends and public policy decisions.",
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"order": 8
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},
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
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"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 9
},
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"hidden-brain": {
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
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"order": 18
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"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
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"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
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},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
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"source": "American Public Media"
},
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
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},
"masters-of-scale": {
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"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
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"source": "WaitWhat"
},
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"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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